Year 1

Dear Year One Families,

Welcome to 2020! Year one students have settled well into the new academic year with an eagerness to learn and motivation to succeed which has been very pleasing to see.

During term one, students explored a number of interests and built on teamwork skills with their peers. Students have adapted well to weekly spelling tests and have shown development with phonological awareness. We have been working on grammar concepts such as nouns, adjectives, simple punctuation and spelling patterns. We have developed our comprehension skills through the study of recounts and descriptions. Students have read various texts and practiced answering literal and inferential questions (looking for clues in the texts!) They are continuing to improve reading skills by referring to illustrations, decoding the words as well as re-telling a story to demonstrate their understanding. We have been writing regular journal entries as recounts and writing descriptions about familiar topics. We incorporated this with our integrated studies topic of History: Past and Present Family Life. Students have written descriptions about familiar topics such as themselves, people in their families, their homes and their school.

In mathematics, we’ve looked at numbers and number vocabulary, as well as place value in two-digit numbers. We studied the mass of objects in our measurement unit and our chance topic has covered the language of probability. Towards the end of term one we began our study of patterns and algebra, which we will continue in term two.

We have thoroughly enjoyed our integrated studies topics this term - learning about the past and present. Students have enjoyed show and tell, sharing special items from home, and making their family tree presentations to their peers in weeks eight and nine.

Students have had the opportunity for hands-on experiences to support their learning, including the toys incursion and our excursion to the Werribee Mansion. Students took part in the Responsible Pet Ownership incursion at school, learning the responsibilities that come with owning pets and how to behave safely around animals.

STEM has been a very popular subject this term! It has brought out the problem-solvers, future engineers and scientists in our students. We’ve seen some really good team players and some whose overall confidence is building as they learn through trial and error. We’ve attempted to create foil towers, make pipe-cleaner/wire bubble wands and realised that the soap we use can change the outcome of how well the bubbles form. Students designed and created paper planes, considering the shape necessary for optimum speed and travel distance. We made sensory water bottles to see the effects of mixing oil and water and we made observations as to whether the temperature of the water effects the interaction with the oil.

In ICT, students have been familiarising themselves with the keyboard and developing hand-eye coordination. They are learning to touch type using Typing Club, an online interactive typing tool, and are using Microsoft Word to practise independent typing. As the weeks progress we are getting better at logging in and using individual passwords. On this note, we would like to remind parents/students that there are weekly Mathletics tasks and Reading Eggspress tasks to complete. These are graded and recorded on SEQTA, so please ensure your child attempts these tasks. Getting your child to practise logging on and off at home would be of huge benefit.

In physical education, our focus has been to build co-ordination and teamwork skills, following rules and showing good sportsmanship. In health, we’ve looked at the importance of nutritional health and healthy portions of food. We have had ongoing discussions about personal hygiene, discussed the importance of washing our hands and the correct practice to cough and blow our nose. A reminder that all students should bring a water bottle to school to keep on their desks throughout the day. Please stress the importance of bringing fresh fruit and vegetables to school rather than highly processed/packaged foods.

In creative arts, the year one students have focused on line, colour and shades. They have learnt that we can add depth to our drawings based on the density of lines, spots or shading. In music and performing arts we have been practicing basic movement activities, singing children’s songs to learn to keep in time and follow rhythm.

We look forward to seeing you all in term two.

Yours in Education,