Classroom News
Grade 1 & 2

We have had a great start to the term. The students have really enjoyed participating in the Tennis Clinic in Week 3 and 4.

Reading

The students have settled back into the routine of Reader’s Workshop. We will be investigating books written by Alison Lester for Term 1. Our focus for the following weeks will be to make text connections with their own iPick book. We will be focussing on making Text-to-Self (How does the book remind them of their own experience of feelings?), Text-to-Text (What other book/s is it similar to? How are they similar? characters, storyline, setting) and Text-to World Connections (How does the text connect to real life/world events?). In Week 5, we will be looking at a reading strategy called ‘Visualising’. This is where the students visualise and picture what they are reading.

Writing

After the beginning of the year writing set up, Year 1 and 2 students are ready to jump into working through the Writer’s Workshop and developing their skills in various text types. This week in writing we will be looking at the text type ‘Snapshot’. Snapshots generally explore a particular event or moment in time through unpacking the senses (e.g. touch, smell, feel, taste, hear and see). On the introduction of this text type, we will be focusing on teaching students how to unpack seeds, use the relevant planners and build their writing from a planner to a draft. We will be using mentor texts from our Alison Lester author study to continue strengthening the link between reading and writing as well as provide rich texts for students to draw inspiration from.

Maths

This week in Maths we are moving our focus onto Place Value. Students are focusing on recalling 1 more, 1 less, 10 more, 10 less and 100 more, 100 less of any given number. They will also be looking at putting numbers and groups of objects into ascending and descending order. Students will be exploring place value through the use of various materials, for example: MAB, unifix and bundles. The students will begin to use Essential Assessment for this topic.

Integrated

In Integrated, we are continuing our focus on Bootcamp (Digital Technologies) and unpacking our School Values as we set the scene. We will begin looking at core apps that the students will use regularly in Year 1 and 2. Students will also be able to describe what a ‘good citizen’ is when using Digital Technologies. The values that we will be focusing on over the next few weeks will be Manners and Respect and Friendship. We will be unpacking these as a class and discussing what that means for us.

Reminders

Please remember to send students with their own drink bottle and don’t forget hats for Term 1.
Make sure all of your students’ belongings are named for example: pencil case items and clothing.
We are also hoping to personalise our Reader’s and Writer’s Notebooks this year. It would be wonderful if your child could bring some pictures or photos or stickers in to school so that we can use these to decorate the covers of their books. For example, if your child likes cars, they could bring in some pictures of cars, or if they have travelled to some amazing places they could bring some photos in. Anything that represents who they are and what they love.
Students are now taking home readers. If you haven’t already, please find your Zip Up folders from last year for the students to use for their take home readers.

Upcoming Events

22nd February - School Photos

23rd February - Parent Teacher Exchange (WebEx)

17th March - Welcome Picnic