Term 1 Overview of Learning Programs
Upcoming Events:
Wednesday
20 February - Information Session for Year 1 parents and carers - 8:30am in
Unit 1
Sunday
17 March - School Fete
Morning
Reading - We would love to encourage parents and carers into the
classroom to share a story with their children - the classroom doors are opened
at 8:50am most mornings.
Readers’ Workshop:
This week we have begun discussing good reading
practices, including finding the perfect spot to practise reading, and
different ways to read a book. We’ve talked about 3 ways to read a book -
reading the words, reading the pictures and retelling a story (if it is one we
are familiar with). Throughout the term we will continue to build our reading
stamina and develop our strategies for both decoding and comprehending what we
read.
Some
of the decoding strategies include:
Does
it make sense? - encouraging children to think about what would make sense when
they are attempting unknown words
If
You Don’t Know, Guess - similar to making attempts that make sense, if your
child doesn’t know the word, encourage them to have a guess that fits with the
clues they have - look at the pictures, the title, the start of the word, think
about what’s happened so far in the text
Throughout
the term students will also be developing their knowledge of a range of
comprehension strategies, including:
Making
connections- when we are reading we can make connections between the text and
something in our own experiences, something in another text we’ve read, or
something we know about in the real world. Making connections helps us to
better understand what we are reading.
Work on Writing:
Initially this term we are planning a number of
different experiences to engage students in writing to provide us with a
variety of work samples. We use this information to help us determine what our
future programs will include so that we are meeting the needs of all students.
In Year 1 we continue to focus on ‘What is a sentence?’
Through
mini-lessons we highlight the appropriate use of capital letters and full stops
and discuss the names and uses of nouns, verbs and adjectives. Spelling is
integrated into all literacy lessons and is a particular focus during Word Work
sessions.
Fine Motor -
The development of finger and hand strength as well as writing stamina are
still essential skills for our students (even with the influence of keyboards
and screens!) Students participate in regular fine motor rotations. These may
include beading, tweezers, balling paper, playdough, tying shoe laces, pegging
etc
Mighty Maths
- these lessons involve a focus on number, place
value, addition, subtraction, skip counting, fractions
In
Term 1 we will focus on number, place value and addition. We are using data
shared from the Kindergarten teachers as well as our own initial observations
of students to regroup across the cohort so that we can differentiate the
learning and engage all students. In Year 1 the Australian Curriculum requires
students to recognise, model, read, write and order numbers to
at least 100. They are also asked to locate these numbers on a number
line. We revisit these important number skills each term and integrate
the strategies we have learnt into problem solving activities.
Maths Extra - these lessons cover
the concepts of 2D and 3D shapes and objects, patterns, data and graphing,
measurement, time and money.
This
term students will be learning about two dimensional shapes - focusing on
geometric features and describing shapes and objects using everyday words such
as corners, edges and faces;
and
patterns - we will make repeating patterns for example ABABAB patterns; as well as growing patterns AB ABC ABCD
Fundamental Motor Skills (FMS)
- We will focus on the following skills throughout the semester:
- Running
- Catching
- Jumping
- Kicking and Underarm throw
These
skills are specifically taught and practised through a variety of games and
activities.
Science Inquiry
- In the first half of the term students will be
completing a science unit called 'Dinosaurs and More!'. During this inquiry
students will develop their understanding of living things and the variety of
external features that they have and how these features affect how an animal
moves etc.
Technologies- Currently
Thursday afternoons is when we explore the technologies - both design
technology - often involving designing, making and appraising a solution to a
particular challenge; and digital technologies which may involve developing
skills and exploring and using digital systems for downloading and storing
information, for example knowing how to download images from a website and
inserting them into a document, or recognising that a digital system follows
instructions or commands, for example instructing robotic toys to perform a
function (we are looking forward to using and programming the BEEBOTS)
Visual Arts
- through visual arts students become aware of
visual conventions and learn to notice visual detail. They will explore how and
why artworks are created and ways to use and apply visual conventions, such as
line, shape, colour and texture
Marvellous Mondays -
a range of other skills and content is addressed during our Monday rotations
with specialist teachers. Our rotations include:
- FMS
- Library (remember Library bags for borrowing)
- Japanese
- Performing Arts