From the 1/2 Classrooms

This term the Grade 1/2 students have been learning about the concept of Sustainability.

The focus in Integrated Studies has been on recycling and re-using rubbish and reducing packaging. In addition, students have considered how we can reduce our water usage, and where our food comes from. They have also been studying how long it takes different items to decompose, which has involved burying an assortment of rubbish or food scraps in the school grounds. These will be dug up in the last week of term. Last week we all completed a tally of the contents of our lunchboxes. This data will be used in this week's maths as the basis for our graphing activities.

The essential questions that have guided our work this term have been:

• How can we leave a tiny footprint on the environment?
• Do we know what we can reduce, re-use and recycle?
• How can we set goals and influence others to look after our environment?

In addition to our regular Integrated Studies lessons, students have spent some time on Thursday mornings discussing and writing responses to a "Thursday Thought". Each of these prompts covered a different aspect of the resources we use, such as our school environment, electricity, plastic bags and water. 

Some of their responses are really quite passionate!

During reading sessions, students have been analyzing several environment-themed mentor texts. Mentor texts are books that model for students what good readers and writers do. Some of the wonderful books we have been using as inspiration for our literacy learning are by iconic Australian authors such as Jeannie Baker. You may like to ask your child about them.

Students used these texts to make connections with their own experiences (text-to-self), with other books (text-to-text) and with the world (text-to-world). Making and sharing these connections helps readers to understand and relate to the books they are reading more deeply. 

This week students have been making more text-to-text comparisons which they are excited to present to you at the Expo next Thursday. They are also working on a PicCollage poster, which uses their learning this term to send an important message using relevant words, short effective sentences and photos or images. They also learnt that font style, size and background colour are important choices for a message to be inspiring. We hope you will enjoy viewing these next week.  

See you all at the Expo! 3pm - 4pm, Thursday 22nd June 2023

From the 1/2 Team.