It is great to have everyone looking refreshed and ready for the final term in Year 1. The following is an overview of learning programs for Term 4.
Upcoming Events:
Week 3 Monday 28 October - school photos
Week 3 Wednesday 30 October - 40th Birthday celebrations for students
Week 3 Friday 1 November - 40th Birthday Assembly 9:20am
Week 7 Thursday 28 November - End of Year Celebration concert
Week 9 Friday 13 December - Year 1 Water Fun Day
Week 10 Tuesday 17 December - Moving Up Day
Week 10 Thursday 19 December - Last day of School 2019
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.
English:
For the first three weeks this term, we will again be discussing how characters in texts are
developed. We will look at what the author does to tell us more about their characters, what
words do they use, how do the other characters describe them, what do the illustrations tell
us about the character?
In writing we will be comparing characters and sharing our personal preferences for the
characters in books we have read and discussed.
In weeks 4, 5 and 6 will will revisit non fiction texts, exploring the features of these texts and
learning strategies to help us when reading and writing non fiction texts.
In reading we will continue to learn about strategies we can use to help us decode unknown words.
We always encourage children to think about what would make sense when they are
attempting unknown words. Some other strategies we use in class are:
Skip the word and then come back to it.
Chunking - split the words into smaller parts, or two smaller words
Use the beginning and ending sounds
Flip the sound - try another sound the letter/s make
Stretch the word out. Blend the sounds together
Think of a word that makes sense
We are keen for students to return their reading pouches as often as possible so that they can
change their books and continue to practice reading to an adult at home.
In writing we will continue to focus on pit stopping. During pitstopping we ask students to
check their writing for the correct use of capital letters, full stops, nouns, verbs and adjectives.
We have also exposed students to recrafting, where students either change, add or remove
words and are encouraged to use a range of punctuation to improve their writing. 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 - In term 4, we will revisit skip counting by 2, 5 and 10 starting from zero
and working towards 100. In place value we will continue to work on being able to recognise,
model, read, write and order numbers to at least 100.
We will also revisit our work on addition and subtraction. In Year 1 our goal is to have quick recall
of friends to ten facts, doubles, near doubles and adding 10 to any number. We use our
knowledge of addition facts to assist us in solving subtraction problems.
Maths Extra - these lessons generally cover concepts in measurement and geometry.
This term we will explore:
Telling time (BER) - reading o'clock and half past times on analogue and digital clocks
Money (Unit 1)- recognising, describing and ordering Australian coins according to their value.
Students will be involved in activities which help them understand that the value of
Australian coins is not related to size, and to describe the features of coins that make it
possible to identify them
Capacity - students will be involved in comparing the capacity of pairs of objects using
informal units. We have a particular focus on understanding that to compare capacities
you must use the same unit of measurement.
Science Inquiry - Our Science inquiry this term is Schoolyard Safari. We will explore the school
grounds looking for small animals to help us learn about what animals require from their
habitats to help them survive. Students have brought home a 'backyard safari' sheet which is to
be completed for week 4 & 5 Talk Time sessions.
Technologies- This term we explore both design technology and digital technologies.
In design technologies we create solutions to fit a design criteria - it usually involves boxes,
paddlepop sticks and lots of tape! Digital technologies involve developing skills and
exploring and using digital systems for publishing information, or creating illustrations (we
do this in Google Draw).
The Arts - This term we will continue to work on creating our end of year concert item. We are
looking forward to all the moving and grooving to come...
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
There will be a small change to these rotations from Week 6 - 10 this term. We will
advise closer to the date of any change in Library borrowing times.
