Week 8 Snapshot 

Grade One 

Week 8  -  Our second week back at school.

"It is just so great to be back in our classroom!" This was a quote from one of our students this week and we feel exactly the same way. All students have transitioned back into the classroom positively and although the structure of long days has led to very tired and hungry students by the end of the week, we are so pleased with how students have managed themselves. 

We  have certainly hit the ground running this fortnight, starting a new inquiry which also means  exploring a new text type and of course we have learnt some new codes. 

Reading

Since our return to the classroom, children have continued to enjoy books from their personal book boxes filling them up with 'good fit books' and building their 'reading stamina'. Children are welcome to bring books from home for their personal book boxes. Please ensure their name is clearly printed on the inside of the book.

We have started a new unit of inquiry with the central idea 'Stories Communicate Cultural Identity and Values'. This unit will have the children inquiring into a range of cultural stories with an emphasis on Indigenous storytelling and sharing their 'own stories'. 

We will also be exploring narratives with a strong focus on characters in the story. We will be discussing the 'outside and inside' traits of a book character which can also be supported at home when reading stories that feature interesting characters. 

First week back, the children had a fabulous fun day dressing up in their pyjamas for National Simultaneous Story Time  and enjoying Chicken Divas By Lucinda Gifford.

Writing 

In writing last week,  students shared the  'Isolation Stories' they wrote in their final week of home learning. The Grade 1 team were very impressed with the beautifully illustrated and written stories that were honest, funny and insightful. Students were exposed to many steps in the writing process when working on their story including drafting, revising and publishing. Many students commented on how 'it was lots of work and took lots of time', but how proud they were of their finished story. Students also had an opportunity to present their stories to the class and practise their speaking and listening skills. 

Teachers read two beautiful books to their class, 'Wilfred Gordon McDonald Partridge' and 'The Day you Begin'.  Students then wrote about the connection they made between the book and their life and experiences. Students also completed a story map after a modelled writing session following the reading of 'Chicken Diva's'

This week in writing, students are learning to write about their favourite character in a book and  their character traits. They will then create their own superhero and write about their character traits and powers. Adjectives will be a focus in grammar. 

We  will continue to teach correct letter formation, positioning of letters on dotted thirds and correct use of punctuation.

Word Study

Students have been introduced to the new codes 'ur' of nurse and 'wor' of works over the past fortnight. Attached is an outline of the 30 codes we now have in our working pack. We strongly encourage you to practice the sounds each code makes with your children throughout the week. Remember codes can make 1,2,3 or even four sounds. You may even like to get children to spot  codes within words when they are reading or go on a word hunt. As the codes are getting more complex we are only adding to our pack once a week. 

Below we have attached a video of our learning specialist Zoe Picton revising the 1-42 codes students have learnt so far. This is a reference for parents to ensure students are saying the sounds each code makes, correctly. If you click on the link, the video will automatically download to your browser. 

Students will also continue to explore how to use reading and spelling tools to help them decode and write words through a series of mini-lesson in class each day. These tools demonstrate the thinking out loud process required to read and write. Once we train our brains to think through these steps, our brain will do the thinking automatically. Students will practice both the reading tools and the spelling tools twice a week. The words in each lesson are based on the codes that are in our working pack.

Wellbeing 

This week we have looked at why we lose control of our emotions and what happens to our brain when we 'flip our lid'. We also explored what we can do when this happens. Students watched this clip as a starting point.

Over the past 6 weeks students have covered  topics throughout our weekly well being lessons and reflections including, growth mindset, feelings, emotions and gratitude. We have loved seeing students really challenge themselves, stepping outside their comfort zones and using a growth mindset in order to understand that mistakes are where real learning begins. We believe implementing these vital social and emotional lessons, are imperative to students well being from an early age.

Mathematics

Last week in Mathematics students revisited time to the hour and half hour on an analogue clock.  They were introduced to digital time and enjoyed making their own clock.  Our learning intentions included:  

*Telling o'clock and half-past time on an analogue clock

*Telling o'clock and half-past time on a digital clock

*Sequencing events that occur throughout the day and showing these times on both analogue and digital clocks.

This week in Mathematics students have been counting by 5s, 10s and 2s to help them solve a number of problems.  Students skip counted to work out how many fingers and eyes were in their class.  Some students even challenged themselves and worked out how many fingers and eyes were in the whole year level! Students have enjoyed playing a variety of games this week to further develop their skip counting skills.

Inquiry

Since returning to school Grade 1 have started their new unit of inquiry.  Our central idea is ‘Stories communicate cultural identity and values’.  Students have started to identify what contributes to their identity and cultures. We have been looking at how we can learn about other cultures through various forms of storytelling.  The story we focused on this week was ‘Tiddalick the frog who caused a flood’. Tiddalick is a small mischievous and very thirsty frog who appears in one of Australia's best known Dreamtime Stories. The Dreamtime is a term that describes unique stories and beliefs owned and held by different Australian Aboriginal groups. 

Grade 1 Team

Tessa Woodgate 1A - Learning Leader

Michelle Flood 1B

Nicole King 1C

Jewel Jackson 1D (Monday, Tuesday)

Kellie Runciman 1D (Wednesday, Thursday, Friday)