Welcome to Grade One!
Grade One is a wonderful year for all our students. We understand it is a big transition from Prep with many exciting challenges including Maths and Reading groups, Homework and using our open learning areas.
Every morning children are participating in Maths, Reading or Writing tasks. Time is allocated in the afternoons for Grammar, Handwriting, Science, Visual Art, Technology and Humanities. This year our specialist programs include Health and Physical Education, Music, Art and Italian.
During Term 2 students participate in a Dance program called Footsteps and later on in Term 3, students attend a Gymnastics program called Sports in Schools.
In Mathematics and Reading, children are grouped across classes to ensure that they are working at their level and challenged accordingly.
During Reading lessons students are taught to use a variety of different reading strategies that will assist them in their ability to decode and analyse a range of different text types including fiction, non-fiction and poetry. Weekly lessons also include independent reading, guided reading and shared reading.
The topics focused on in Mathematics through the year are Number and Algebra, Measurement and Geometry and Statistics and Probability. Lessons begin with quick warm ups for skip counting and revising previously taught content. In Semester 1 the emphasis is on accuracy when adding and subtracting to and from 10. In Semester 2 students consolidate their accuracy while also improving their speed. Weekly homework tasks mirror classroom work.
In our Writing sessions we investigate different styles such as narrative, poetry, information reports and free choice topics. The focus on writing in Grade 1 is capital letters, full stops and sentence structure. Students will also begin to explore descriptive language and experiment with question marks, exclamation marks and commas. Children are also taught how to proof-read, edit and publish some of their work.
Spelling of Magic and Tricky words is an important aspect of Grade 1. Students are given time to practise their spelling in class and it is an expectation that they also practise at home. Each week the students are informally tested by their teacher and at the end of each term they complete a formal spelling assessment task.
In Grade One we understand the importance of technology at school. iPads, computers and interactive whiteboards are used on a daily basis. Sunshine Online (reading) and Mathletics (maths) are 2 programs that are used extensively. While Sunshine Online is limited to classroom use only, we strongly encourage students to use Mathletics at home.
Throughout the year we will be investigating several topics including:
Term 1 - Community: Places and Spaces
Term 2 - History: Me and My History
Term 3 - Science: Earth and Space
Term 4 - Geography: Local Geography
We look forward to sharing our activities, photos and work samples as the year progresses.
