Year 1 - Term 1 Curriculum Newsletter
UPCOMING DATES FOR TERM 2
25th April - ANZAC Day
26th April - First Day of Term Two
24th June - Last day of term Two
For all other key dates, please refer to the
School Newsletter and Compass.
REMINDERS
Home Learning: Thank you for your ongoing support with Home learning. Please continue to read and record your reading every night with your child. It has been great to see the spelling activities completed at home, which has greatly assisted students in remembering their words and practicing the weekly sound.
Toilet Breaks: Please continue to speak with your child about toilet breaks and the importance of them going before school, during recess and lunch times to avoid missing out on valuable learning time.
Fruit/Veggie breaks: These breaks occur in all classes at different times, depending on the class needs. It is important to remember that only fruit/veggies are to be eaten at this time. It has been great to see children coming with cut/peeled snacks in containers, greatly assisting any disruptions to your child’s learning.
Communication with the Teacher: As we come to the end of term, please be mindful that teachers are often preparing lessons and attending meetings before and after school. If you would like to discuss something of concern with your child’s classroom teacher, please contact them to make an appointment. Appointments can be made through SeeSaw or by contacting the teacher by phoning the office.
Non urgent messages can be sent on Seesaw. This can be a good way to pass across quick information or ask questions. Please also be mindful that teachers will endeavour to respond to messages within 48 hours. Checking of messages and posting of announcements will be done as often as possible on weekdays between 8:30am and 5:00pm. Urgent messages are best to be called through to the school office
Soft Start at Kismet Park PS: We are very lucky at Kismet Park to start our day with a soft start, this mimics the way you prefer to start your day – with a chance to settle in before beginning work. This term students have settled well during soft start, independently completing their morning routines (emptying backpacks, fruit and drink bottles on table etc.) and when they finish, going on with their morning activities including Look, Say, Cover, Write, Check and changing their take home books. Students are able to talk with friends during this time and are encouraged to say good morning to people in the room. We feel this really strengthens our sense of community in our room and empowers students to make positive choices. Soft Start is between 8:45am - 8:55am.
Celebrating our Learning in English
Reading
In our reading sessions we are really embracing our daily fluency readings. Fluency is the ability to read text accurately, quickly and with expression. Fluency is an essential skill for proficient reading so they can focus on meaning making and comprehension. We do fluency in pairs and read the same passage every day. We read for four minutes then swap and our buddy reads for four minutes. We love giving each other feedback.
Writing
We have worked hard to improve our writing skills this term, ensuring our writing is legible and using our correct posture and pencil grip. We have learnt the correct structure to write a recount and have enjoyed sharing what we have done on the weekend. Another important skill we have have been practicing editing our own writing, which is the ability to read back from our own writing, checking that it makes sense and improving it.
Celebrating our Learning in Mathematics
We have engaged in lots of hands on and open ended math activities, building on our
knowledge of time, 2D shapes and numbers. We have loved taking maths outdoors, where we have drawn number lines with chalk, played What’s the Time Mr Wolf and participated in team house races to practice our ordinal number skills.
Celebrating our Learning in Wellbeing
We collaboratively created our Essential Agreement and participated in many activities and discussions around recognising and identifying different emotions, showing awareness of the needs and feelings of others and demonstrating ways to interact and care about others.
We really enjoyed celebrating Harmony Week and national day against bullying and violence where we read the story ‘Chrysanthemum’ and looked at how our words can hurt others on the inside. We loved the saying; ‘Before you speak, think and be smart. It’s hard to fix a wrinkled heart.’
Specialist Classes
Performing Arts
Grade One students have been having a great time exploring role-play and characterisation through puppets in Performing Arts. Students have enjoyed devising a character and engaging with each other in short dramatisation with a focus on oral language and communication skills.
Japanese
This term as Year 1 Learners of Japanese we learnt all about the story of the Chines Zodiac and what animals make up the story. We revised our colours and then learnt to describe these animals using the colours we know. We continued to learn greetings and songs in Japanese.
Physical Education
Grade 1 students have been focussed on motor skills such as running, hopping, jumping and skipping. We have been very active throughout the term.