Weekly Update – Year 1
Monday 24th – Wednesday 26th August – All Year 1 students attend school until 12:00pm.
Thursday 27th August – Wednesday 2nd September – All Year 1 students attend school until 1:00pm, including lunch.
Tuesday 1st September – Cheese and Wine Welcome Party for new parents, 5:00pm.
Tuesday 1st September – Meet the Teacher evening, 6:30pm introduction in the hall for new BHS parents (those without older siblings at BHS) 6:45pm in the classrooms.
Thursday 3rd September – Public Holiday, school closed.
Friday 4th September – All Year 1 students attend full school day.
Labels! Labels! Labels! Please make sure that all items that come to school have a name and class label. This includes backpacks, snack boxes, shoes, hats, and water bottles. Thank you!
Also note that students should bring a hat and a water bottle to school every day. PE uniforms are to be worn on PE and PMP days. Please check your child’s schedule to make sure they come to school in the correct uniform.
The lanyards with your child’s travel plans for the end of the day should be brought to school every day for the first few weeks of school. They should not wear it to school, but please make sure it is in the backpack so that your child can be directed to the proper bus or waiting area.
This week in Year 1 students have been settling into classroom routines and getting to know the different areas of school. Each half of the classes have met different specialist teachers throughout the week, and on Friday the Yellow and Blue groups of each class got to finally meet each other!
Everyone is so excited to be back to school after the summer holiday, and the children are ready to begin the year’s fun learning journey.
Our first Unit of Inquiry is our Who We Are unit. The Central Idea is: People have characteristics, abilities and interests that form who they are. This will be our main topic of investigation. To further guide student interest we have three Lines of Inquiry. These are: physical, social and emotional characteristics of people; similarities and differences between ourselves and others; and personal abilities and interests.
This will be a fun unit to take a closer look at what makes us… us!
Throughout the year we will be focusing on two different Maths units. One unit will be strictly about the use of numbers, and the other will be on a mathematical concept like patterns or data collection. Starting next week we will begin our first two units: introducing numbers as a naming system and 2D shapes.
In Year 1 we use a phonics curriculum called Get Reading Right! A phonics curriculum focuses on basic building blocks of words called phonemes. Phonemes are basically the smallest parts of words: sounds! We will be teaching these sounds/phonemes in small groups throughout the year. The first group of phonemes is:
s m c t g p a o
Students will practise remembering these sounds when they see them and putting them together to make small words. Home reading books will not be sent home for practice until after the Meet The Teacher evening.
The Golden Book Award is a weekly award for one student in each class for doing something special. Please note that EVERY student will receive one before the end of the school year, so don’t worry. The awards are given out Monday, so the first winners will be announced here next week!
The regular homework for Year 1 students is the levelled book that goes home every day. These reading sessions should be daily, fun, and quick! If your child cannot read any of the words practise pointing to each word as you read or pick out a few sounds to practise. After reading, ask your child to retell what happened in the story and ask a few key questions related to the story like, “Why do you think the boy did not want to leave his dad?” or “What would YOU like to do at the beach?”
As mentioned before, reading books will not be going home for the first few weeks of school, but look for them shortly after the Meet The Teacher Evening!
You may also want to take some time to ask your child about the teachers in their school. Do they know the PE teacher’s name? How about the Principal? On what floor is their Mandarin classroom?
Thank you for a great first week back! We are looking forward to seeing you at the Wine & Cheese Party and the Meet The Teacher event later in the evening. In the meantime, label those items!