6 Nov 2015

Year 1 Update – Wk 11

We have been continuing with  our second unit ‘How We Organise Ourselves’.

Central Idea: ‘People play different roles in the communities they belong to’.

This week the children have been inquiring into people who help us in our school and the role that they play in our community. They have brainstormed their ideas about what they think different people around the school do and questions that they would like to ask members of our school community. Some classes have also written letters to members of staff asking them questions about their jobs and have invited them to have lunch with their classes.

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We have been continuing our maths unit focussing on the central idea: ‘Addition and subtraction are connected to each other and are used to solve problems’. 

This week the children have been using different types of Maths equipment, such as Numicon, dice and muliti-link cubes to deepen their understanding of the concept of addition and subtraction. They have been introduced to some of the addition strategies such as, number bonds to 10 and counting on and back from a given number. The children have also been working on a Maths problem solving task ask which involved them having to find different ways of making given numbers using spots on a ladybird’s back. The children enjoyed the open-ended nature of this task and came up with some great answers.

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We have continued with the Set 2 phonemes:

 r    l    f    h    b   d    i    u

 

day    for    today

of    he    a

 

You will have received a phonic bookmark this week with information about our set 2 phonemes and how you can help at home.

At school we have been talking to the children about what makes a good reader and they have been learning that good readers use a number of strategies when they are decoding such as, sounding out using their phonic awareness, using the pictures for clues and recognition of keywords (camera words). Below are some pictures of the strategies we encourage the children to use when decoding text at school. Please take a look and help your child practice these strategies at home.

 

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Every week the Year 1 children are involved in UOI Rotations which allow the children to engage in very focussed play sessions that link to our Units of Inquiry. One of our rotations is in the Shared Area where the children are encouraged to make choices about their play and learning. A main focus for the Shared Area is on developing and using vocabulary and language. The parents who volunteer and help each week extend the children’s learning by asking them questions and getting themselves involved in the children’s play. We would like to say a big thank you to all of our parents who help on a Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday afternoon. We really do appreciate your help!

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