Welcome back to Term 2!

Welcome back to term two 1T! We've got an exciting term in store! We began with reading groups straight off on our first day back! We hit the ground running and I must thank Dee for being ready to listen to our lovely students read on that first day back. We also had assembly on Wednesday and some of us got to stand on the stage to help all of kindergarten, year 1 and 2 sing along to 'Going to the Zoo' and doing the actions. We did a fabulous job!

 

We even had number groups on our first day back! My number group practiced our numbers before and after, played a game where you needed to find the answers to some doubles and we also had to add on to 20 rolling a dice using a number line. We were so busy learning that the time just flew by!

On Friday we did some rotating literacy activities looking at the long 'a' sound, nouns, using our whisper phones to read to ourselves and writing for our 'Wow Wall'. I must say a big thank you to both Samuel and Xavier's families who have made some more whisper phones so that we now have enough for everybody to use one when we're reading to ourselves! Thank you!

 

We then had our computer lesson using google classroom where we learnt how to change font colour, size and style before we learnt how to insert a picture into our slide. 

 

We ended our week with an amazing SISA lesson! We're learning our fundamental movement skills with some amazing equipment. Check it out!

 

STEM Afternoons

Here's a little taste of our last two STEM afternoon sessions. We'll be putting something in the newsletter next term that lets you know a little more about what we were doing. I got to go to all the classes briefly on Thursday afternoon and the buzz coming from all the classes was wonderful!

 

Reading groups in action

I had someone take photos of reading groups in action this week. We're very busy during reading groups so it's been difficult to record us working. But we have worked really hard and you can see us below. We read with Mrs Taylor or a parent, work with words (playing sight word memory, phonics and sight word board games and make words such as rhyming words), are beginning to work on simple comprehension strategies (making predictions, making connections, visualising, summarising using who, what, where, when and why or identifying the beginning, middle and end of the story), technology (iPad sight word and phonics games/listening to stories) and practicing our writing (using pictures or sentence starters). We rotate through activities in the mornings during our literacy groups on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. Wednesday and Thursday have been shorter days this term because of our weekly assembly and SISA sport. Next term we won't have SISA on Thursday so will be able to have a normal reading session on that day.

 

   

 

Consonant Blends

We all got into our Google Classroom today! What an achievement! Once in there we had a link to click on with our mouse and then we got to play a game from ABCYa called 'consonant blends'. Check it out below!
ABCYa Consonant Blends

A few days in the life of 1T

Everyday is a learning day! So here's a little glimpse into some of what we're doing during the day!

We've been learning to create mental pictures while we read. This is called visualising. 'Visualising' is a strategy we use to help us think about what might happen next, to remember details about the text we're reading and it helps us get really involved in the text too. We've been learning that this helps us to understand what we read better.

 

We've been trying really hard to write more content. Our parents coming to see our work was just the inspiration we needed to write a page! Look at these books!

 

We have been learning about 'grammar' which caused a few giggles as many thought I was talking about 'Grandma'. We're working on nouns, verbs and adjectives, what they are and where we use them. Camille asked if the word 'slowly' was a verb, so we had a great class discussion about adverbs and got to walk slowly and think of adverbs to add to the verbs, write, run and walk. There were lots of slow motion walkers in our room.

We've been learning about length and the terms longer than and shorter than a metre and today we used our feet to measure. We got to go outside and with a partner measure the length and width of the basketball courts. We then came in and compared our measurements. We discussed why the measurements were all different and how we could get around that. We decided that we needed to measure items with the same item and that our feet are all different lengths so we can't use them. What a wonderful discussion about length and the importance of regular units of length in measuring items. We also talked about  the importance of measuring by placing their foot one in front of the other rather than just normal steps. Lots of thoughtful discussion!

Here you can see some of the lengths we found. And below some of us in action!

 

 

Our stamina reading is almost at 10 minutes. We are really good at reading by ourselves. We now get a few books, get comfy in a quiet spot and then read out loud, use our whisper phones or read in our heads. Don't we look like we love reading time! It's just lovely! It's just a pity Mrs Taylor only has four cushions!

 

This afternoon we sang along to our assembly song for the week, Mr Clicketty Cane's 'Wash your face with orange juice' which is definitely a favourite. After we sang that we then sang, 'The Ants go Marching'. What a great way to end the afternoon!

Graphing

Today we got to graph our friend's names! Now that was so exciting! We had to copy their names from their desk and then work out who had the name with the most and least letters out of the names we chose. The word 'least' is a tricky one. We found out it meant the smallest amount. In our class the people with the shortest names are Max and Sam.

 

We finished our class novel, The Twits today. It had twenty-nine chapters! That's a lot of book! We then created lots of ideas about stories we could write using the book as inspiration. We are really working hard to write more than 4 sentences, read our own work back to Mrs Taylor and use capital letters  and full-stops. Some of us are writing a whole page! Wow! I love the stories we are beginning to write and some of the illustrations that accompany them are fabulous!

Here's Leith's story:

Once I was sitting under a tree and had an apple. Just when I had finished my apple the tree shrunk into the ground. Then I was underground. I dug and dug until I saw a larva world. I saw a sign that said the first person who discovers this can own this place. I saw a larva car. I tried to drive it in the larva.

 

Sophie wrote about Frozen. She wrote:

On Friday I was having a play date at Elsa's place. I was playing with Anna and Elsa. I love Elsa and Anna. I went to Anna's birthday.

 

Xylah wrote:

Once upon a time I went to bed. I heard a BOOM! There was a monster. I said, aaaa. I was very scared. I ran to my mum and I did not get sore. I was lucky and then the monster got sick. The monster went home.

 

And Jackson's story:

I saw a house melting. It was a hot day. I saw a house made out of an ice-block. It melted. The world was freezing. After that the cars melted. After the people melted.

 

And finally Sam:

One day I flew across the land. I flew across the school. It was so cool! But one day I crashed into a wall and banged my head. But I still liked it. I am so excited I am going to perform magic tricks on a stage. It is going to be cool! I'm doing it right now. But I'm still a bit nervous.

 

 

I love all the stories and I love seeing everyone trying so hard to sound out the sounds they know. I can't wait to see where we are at the end of the year. I think we're just going to fly! We're working so hard at writing more and having a go! Wow! One proud Mrs Taylor!!

Harmony Day

Today we were lucky enough to visit four different countries around the world. First we got to visit Switzerland and find out about what they eat there, what food they eat and what they are known for. 

 

Next we visited Hawaii where there were hula skirts, bongo jumps and we learnt to say, 'Aloha!', which is a greeting like saying hello or goodbye. Some of us got to wear a lai which is a flower wreath you wear around your neck. 

 

In the middle of the day we had scripture and then we got to sing our Harmony Day song with our buddies and the whole school.

 

After lunch we visited two more countries. The first country we visited was Spain. We got to dance and shake maracas which made lots of noise. They were so much fun!

 

The last country of the day was France. Our presenters had coloured moustaches on which made them look funny. We got to draw a picture of the Eiffel Tower. We then played musical chairs to the sound of the French National Anthem before learning how to count to ten in French.

 

What a great day!

Buddy time

We had some fantastic buddy time this week! We got to use our special craft bits we had brought in. Our buddies also shared their stuff with us too. We got to cut and paste, tear and scrunch, staple and sticky tape an assortment of colourful bits and pieces onto our hats. The floor and tables were nearly as colourful as the hats!

 

 

Reading Groups

Reading groups or literacy groups happen on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday mornings. We're very lucky to have parent helpers coming into the classroom at every reading session. Here is what it looks like just before we start...

 

Because it was St Patrick's day on Friday we got to make some of our words using the play dough. It's great for manipulating into letters, improves our fine motor skills as well as being a fabulous way to learn our sounds using our senses.

The best part was getting to bring out the play dough in the afternoon during Taylor Time. A favourite for the afternoon! 

Here's the recipe Mrs Taylor used:

2 cups plain flour

4 tablespoons Cream of Tartar

2 tablespoons cooking oil

1 cup salt

2 cups of hot water

Food colouring of choice (I used half a small bottle of colouring!)

Mix all dry ingredients together and combine well.

Mix all liquids together and stir.

Make a well in dry ingredients and add the hot liquid and stir slowly until if forms together into thick dough. Use extra flour if too sticky.

Knead until ready. I used gloves so I didn't burn my hands. Then when it had cooled down I took the gloves off, kneaded a little longer and then divided into different zip lock sandwich bags.

A really lovely soft play dough!

Friday - the best day ever!

So today I heard, 'It's the best day ever!' I'm guessing it might have had something to do with our first session on the computer! We went to the computer room and although it took us a little while to log in to the computer, we all managed to play on Matific (our new trial maths website). 

 

Next week Mrs Taylor is going to take us to our Google Classroom! We'll need to log in to the computer, open chrome, log in to our student portal, go to our learning tools, click on 'Google Suite' and then our Google Classroom. The first time we go there we'll need a class code, but after that we'll be able to log straight in. Last year we did it with Mrs Taylor when she was teaching us computers. It's going to be so much fun learning new ways of using technology while we're also learning about our other subjects. 

 

History - timelines and toys

We looked at a timeline today of someone our age. We had to sort the photos of a little girl, using the voice recordings, into the correct order. We did a fabulous job! We then talked about old pieces of technology that would have been used in houses like fridges, irons and washing machines. It was funny looking at old fridges. They were very big and and had rounded edges. The irons didn't even use any electricity!

 

We then talked about one of our favourite topics of conversation which is talking about our toys! We got to talk about the old toys we'd seen at our excursion to Rouse House. Toys from a long time ago were made of wood or metal because there wasn't any plastic then. We then talked about the games and toys at our school that are from the olden days. Mrs Taylor acted out hopscotch and then using a hoola hoop. I think that everyone's day was made by this!

 

We then talked about toys the boys are using that are the same as ones from a long time ago. Spinning tops are the same as our new bay blades, although bay blades have little cogs inside them and bits that fall off. What a great connection with toys from the past. We got to draw a toy from long ago and one from today. Nearly all of the boys drew bay blades and the girls drew a mixture of barbies and shopkins.

 

Assembly

On Wednesdays we have to cut our reading groups a little short as we have assembly. However because we're lucky enough to have parent and grandparent helpers everyone got to read to someone today. Thank you Georgia and Dee! We really do appreciate the extra ears and hands!

During assembly we get to sing our school song and the national anthem. We also got to sing 'We're Going To The Zoo!'. Some year twos were chosen to do the actions on the stage so we could follow along. But we already know the actions and some of us wanted to go up on stage too. We got two awards for our class today! You should have seen those fabulous smiles! We also sang our birthday song to the people who had a birthday this week.

 

This shark eats chips!

 

We're learning about letters that make one sound. They're called digraphs. Sh, ch, th and wh are digraphs. The silly title of this post uses all the digraphs we are learning. We practiced writing words with these digraphs. Mrs Taylor gave each word with the digraph correctly written a point and each word spelled correctly a point. The 'sh' words won last week too. We know more 'sh' words than the other consonant digraphs like 'ch', 'wh' or 'th'. Although 'th' words are a close second. 

Have a look at this song about our consonant digraphs.

Graphing with Smarties

We've been graphing birthdays and the number of boys and girls in our class. We've been talking about tally charts and using tally marks to count the number of what we're graphing. We know that we have to write four lines and then one line across when we get to five.

Today we got to use our tally skills to count how many smarties we had in each colour in our own mini snack sized smartie box. How exciting to get to play with chocolate while we're learning!

 

Have a look at some of our fabulous work!

 

Fantastic Friday

Today is the last day of the week but it certainly isn't the quietist!! We started the day with reading groups and had Jill and Mrs McInerney come into the room to help us this morning. We read, did some sight word work and built our stamina writing. We have to practice our reading and writing everyday. Last year at the end of kindergarten we aimed to write four sentences when writing. Now we're in year 1 we're trying really hard to build our stamina for writing and are trying to write more than four sentences! Mrs Taylor has been so impressed with how we're going!

Some of us wrote so much that we got to take our reading to Mrs Stanford to show her. We got gold principals stickers! We felt so special and Mrs Taylor was so proud!

 

On Thursday we read for 7 minutes 13 seconds and now, can you believe, we can read independently for 8 minutes and 38 seconds! Mrs Taylor is so proud of us! Most of us have brought in books from home and Mrs Taylor has bought some phonic readers from Aldi's to use as well. We are really good at finding a nice sensible spot to read, get comfy and then read with our whisper phones or out loud. We know that we can't interrupt anyone, get up and walk around the room or chat with our friends. We also know that during our reading sessions to build our stamina we're not allowed to get a drink of water or go to the toilet. We even know the difference between fake reading and real reading. And do you know that we're all doing real reading for all that time. We're so clever!

 

 

After reading groups we heard back from our pen pal school in Toronto. I've copied and pasted the letter below so you can see what they wrote to us! How exciting to get a reply to our letter! Their school has three breaks which we all thought was a lot! They also call things different names. They call excursions, field trips and biscuits, cookies. They asked us how we get to school so we tallied up the ways we travel. We love learning about graphs and data too!

 

Have a read below. What was your schooling like? We'd love to hear about how your school life was different from what we do.

Dear Year 1’s at Boronia Park Public School, 

It was nice to hear back from you! 

We find it interesting that it is summer there and winter here. Although we get to play in the snow, we are jealous that you have summer all the time! During the summer we like to swim outside, play in the pool, play at the beach, go on field trips, go to the park, play baseball, go to the zoo, play different sports and go to amusement parks.

We’ve discussed how you are on the other side of the world. Right now, it is daytime here and nighttime where you are. 

When we have birthdays in the classroom, students usually bring in cupcakes or cake to share with the class. We might bring in snacks like fruit and cookies. We celebrate by having a party in class. During the party we sing a special birthday song and have a dance party. The birthday person gets to wear a special pin on their birthday. 

We have 3 breaks a day, which are 2 recesses and a lunch. Our recesses are 15 minutes each. We go outside and play and eat snacks. If the weather is bad, we have to stay inside to eat our snack and play. We get an hour for lunch from 11:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. We eat inside in our classrooms, or in the daycare which is located in the school. We eat for 15-20 minutes then go outside for the rest of lunch to play. We start school at 8:43 a.m. and finish at 3:20 p.m.

In our class, we all drive or walk to school since we live very close. In the summer, we ride our bicycles to school since it is nice outside. 

In school we learn about math, science, social studies, health, art, language (reading, writing), computers, gym, music, drama, dance and library. We learn French in school here, but only when you are in grade 4 and up.

At the moment some of our favourite stories are Ready, Set, Go! By Robert Munsch, Elephant and Piggy by Mo Willems, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, books about animals, Pokemon and Lego books, Spiderman and superhero books.

Recently we went two field trips to The Science Centre and to watch a concert. At The Science Centre we learned about energy and structures. There are different rooms and areas where you can explore and learn about science. We were able to go to the caves, a kids park, build structures, take shadow pictures and go into the rainforest. On our second field trip, we went to a concert to see Jack Grunsky perform. He sang happy kids songs.

Some questions we have for you:

-Do you have daycare?

-What time do you finish school?

-How do you get to school?

-Do you have extra-curricular clubs?

-What subjects do you learn in school?

-Do you have a Science Centre?

-Do you live near a lake?

-Do you have any special fairs during the year?

From Ms. Gibbon’s Grade 1/2 Class

After recess we did some sentence work. We're working really hard to work out what a sentence is. We now know that a sentence needs a capital letter and a full stop. It also needs to have a verb and it needs to make sense. We had to pretend we were teachers today and change some sentences to make them make sense.

We had some more of our story, The Twits. The monkeys had escaped! We really don't want Mr and Mrs Twit to eat them like they do the birds in the garden. Mr Twit is so mean that he puts glue on the branches of a tree and then the birds get stuck on the glue and he turns the birds into a bird pie. He doesn't even take their feathers or feet off before cooking them. We decided that was really gross! We all like chicken but we don't like to eat chicken heads, beaks, eyes and feathers!

Next we did some more about measurement. We had to find items around the room that are less than a metre, the same as a metre or more than a metre. We did a great job of measuring the items around the room using a metre ruler. At the end of the lesson we even got to see if we could step or jump the distance of a metre. We tried really hard to jump a metre and most of us could do it. We were having so much fun that it didn't even feel like we were learning. 

 

Our last session on Friday afternoons is now spent with Mrs Stephens. Mrs Taylor has to help some of the other teachers in the afternoon and we won't miss Mrs Taylor so much then. We still get some Taylor time to finish off the week though!