Melton West Primary School

Year 1 News 

English

 

Reading 

In Reading this term, the Grade 1 students will be completing an author study. We will focus closely on the author Pamela Allen. Students will start off learning about Pamela Allen and who she is as a person and what kind of author she is. They will then be introduced to different books by the author, where students will apply a range of comprehension strategies, including analysing, inferring, making connections and critiquing. Our lessons will focus on aspects of the author’s craft, such as the characters, settings, problems, solutions, language features, illustrations and layouts of her texts. Throughout the unit, students will have the opportunity to showcase their learning about Pamela Allen by completing various reading responses.

Students will also be focusing on nonfiction texts that align with the topic of the fiction texts from the author study. This will allow the students to continue developing their understanding of the different types of nonfiction texts, how to read them and how to apply strategies to understand them.

 

Writing

In Term 4, Grade 1 students will be writing realistic narratives, creating well structured stories with a clear beginning, middle, and end. During this unit, we will focus on character and setting development, as well as realistic problems that link with an appropriate and realistic solution. 

We will then move on to creating Explanation texts. During this unit we will focus on creating non-fiction texts that describe how and/or why things happen, or the process of how it works. 

Throughout the term we will also have a continuation of ‘Sounds Write’ focusing on building, reading and writing words including a range of digraphs such as sh, ch, th and wh. 

 

Mathematics

In Term 4, Grade 1 students will focus on a range of topics. Students will begin by experimenting with different 3D shapes and their features, while learning to use vocabulary such as faces, edges and corners to describe them. Next we will focus on Mass, where they will get the opportunity to identify how heavy or light an object is by hefting and using balance scales. After this, we will move onto fractions where students will specifically look at halves. They will be given opportunities to halve shapes and real world objects. Then we will focus on Location,  where they will learn about directional language to give and follow directions. Next, students explore capacity, where they will get to practice estimating and measuring how much different objects can hold. To end of the term, students will revise Place Value to extend their current knowledge and understanding of these topics.

 

Inquiry

In Inquiry this term, students will explore a unit titled Great Southern Land. By the end of this inquiry, students will be able to understand that Aboriginal people continue to maintain special connections to the Country/Land.

The key questions guiding our inquiry are:

  • How and why are Country / Place significant to Aboriginal people? 
  • What are the ways in which Aboriginal people maintain special connections to particular country / land / place? 
  • How did Aboriginal people care for and sustain these special places? 

The unit will focus on identifying and discussing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Country/Place on which the school is located and why Country/Place is important to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, and the ways in which they maintain special connections to particular Country/Place. Students will investigate, explore, connect and deepen their understanding and feelings about special places, and the wider importance of places to people and how places can be cared for.

 

Science

Welcome to term 4 Science, where the Grade 1 students will be focusing on the Chemical Science strand and learning that different materials can be combined for particular purposes.

Students will focus on mixing materials and observe similarities and difference between different materials, which includes various foods. They will be learning to identify and record the properties of some everyday materials, such coco and spaghetti, and will carry out observations and experiments on how some foods can be mixed together to form different products, such as corn flower and water.  Students will identify that not everything can be mixed together, such as oil and water, and explore how the properties of a mixture, such as colour and texture, can depend on the number of substances it contains.

 

LOTE-Chinese

Welcome to term 4 Grade 1, the last term of 2022. In this term, the main topic for Grade 1 to learn will be how to pronounce different clothes in Chinese, such as T-shirt, shorts, dress, pants, hat and sweater. There will be a big project that students will do across the whole term in which students will design each part of the clothes in each lesson and stick it on the A3 coloured paper. At the end of the term, kids will vote for their favourite cloth design in their class. Meanwhile, traditional clothes that Chinese people wear will be introduced in this term and students will also share and learn the traditional clothes that other students wear at home in their class. 

 

Art

In Term 4, the Year 1s will continue their learning in Art with a focus around the themes ‘Building’ and ‘Celebrating’. This will include activities that introduce basic printmaking concepts, use paper manipulation to create decorations for the school library, and feature our school in observational drawings and photography. Having developed a sound understanding of collaborative practice last term, we will work together looking at First Nations Dreaming stories and crafting gifts. Some of the artists we will learn about are Margaret Rarru, Shane Pickett and Charlotte Durance.

We will also be preparing for our excursion to the National Gallery of Victoria, making predications and gathering information for our visit! It has been fantastic welcoming the students back into the art room for our final term. We look forward to sharing our creations.

 

P.E.

For this upcoming term the grade 1 students will continue to develop their fundamental motor skills across three different sports. These sports include badminton, hockey, and netball. The motor skills of throwing, catching, striking, and shooting will all be developed and worked on during this term. Once the term is complete each student in grade 1 will hopefully be able to showcase all these skills on be on their way to successfully play these sports. During this term our students will revisit some earlier learning found in our tennis and basketball units of work as these new sports overlap the relevant skill sets. During badminton and hockey grade 1 students will learn how to strike a ball/puck using a racket and hockey stick. They will develop their power and accuracy while completing these skills. Students will continue to learn and develop how to throw a chest pass, bounce pass, and catch a ball with two hands, these skills will be worked on during the topic of netball. I can’t wait to work with the grade 1 students this final term of the year, we had such a great year to date, and this final term should be our best yet!