Week 3 Term 1

 Good evening parents,

Wow! What an absolutely busy yet fun first fortnight we have had in the 1K team.  Our days have been jam-packed full of learning already - place value in mathematics, manipulating sounds in our spelling groups to create new words, writing recount texts and changing fragments into real sentences, beginning our reading and mathematics groups, learning about sounds and how scientists record their learning and observations, learning about the art elements of line and shape to begin our self portraits and collecting daily data to answer our investigative question as mathematicians. Phew!  Plus all of the awesome team building things like helping others, taking turns to share ideas and listening to others ideas, working with a partner to solve problems and enjoying God's creations and environment together.  

I am so proud of how much focus and persistence with a positive attitude our 1K team are showing when learning new things. In just a few weeks we are already growing our confidence to problem solve and continuing to build our independence to complete our work, try out new things and even suggest and share our own ideas and other ways we can show what we know and have learnt.   

Thank you to all who have made the time to watch our parent information introduction video last week and read through the attached slides in the previous post. I hope it was a great way to find out the 'nitty gritty' of  both our Year One learning and life in our class. Please feel free to refer back to the previous blog post for a link to the slides presented and feel free to email me with any follow up questions you may have.

A few pieces of information for this week...

Homework
Yay! The time that you have all been waiting for! This afternoon we will send home a homework book and their R.E.D reading folder. Inside their RED reading folder will be a home reader book.  I ask that you be aware that we are currently in the slow but informative process of listening to every child read to evaulate their current reading abilities and needs so the reading level being sent home at the moment are based on their previous levels that were handed on from their pre-primary teacher at the end of last year.  It is likely that these levels will change over the next few weeks as we individually assess them.  Please also be aware that it is completely normal for children's reading levels and reading abilities to slide backwards over the summer break or to dramatically jump up higher as their knowledge grows.  There also seems to be a big gap between the difficulty of some given levels of books and this degree of difficulty can seem to range depending on the series or publisher of the book.  Feel free to make a note of any books level of difficulty (too easy/hard etc) in the comments section so we can try to adjust accordingly as they are changed over.  

Please have a read of the homework grid sheet glued inside your child's homework book and try to complete the shaded parts with your child every night. These homework grids will be updated and changed every two weeks.  They include:

1. Read every night (with the supplied reading book) - reading every day will increase their knowledge of words and sentence structure, build upon common word recognition (sight words), develop their vocabulary, give them daily opportunities to decode and read unknown words and apply reading strategies learnt in class and develop their comprehension skills.  It is important that they read aloud to you every night/morning for 10 minutes.

2. Be read to by an adult or older sibling (Year 1 students this can include the PLD comprehension book that comes home on Thursdays more news on this from Mrs Kemp our librarian when this program begins) - Reading aloud to your child develops their understanding of text structure, vocabulary, expression and grammar including the use of punctuation.

3. Read the words on your fluency grid.  Please give them a small tick next to each word they read aloud correctly without requiring sounding out or guessing.  Place a small dot next to those words not recognised to try again and focus on the next night.  You can time your child to try and read more each night or aim to read all of them each night with growing accuracy and speed.  Please also discuss what each word means if any words are new.

4. Spelling list This is an optional activity to share with you at home our focus phoneme sounds and spelling graphemes we are learning in class.  These are some example words for your child to practise sounding out loud and spelling indpendently.  We suggest that you read the word aloud and then say it in a sentence context and then ask them to say the word orally first, using their sound fist to break apart each sound and then have a go at writing the corresponding letters that represent each sound.  Differentiated spelling lists that correlate with the different spelling groups in class will be sent home later in the term as we become more confident with completing our spelling tasks independently but feel free to let me know if your child is finding these words too easy and I can provide the next level in their homework to them earlier.  

Homework System
The children's reading folders will be reviewed each morning during gathering time. For Term One until week 7 after swimming week, we will begin to offer book exchanges each night but for the first few weeks we will only change them on Mondays and Wednedays and so your child will have the same book for two nights in a row for the next month.  After Week 7, we will offer book exchanges every day but if your child is still continuing to read the same book then just pre-fill in the next day so that we know you would like to continue reading for the following night.  If the whole text is easily read in one night during the 10 minutes, your child can either choose to reread the same text for a second night to develop their confidence and fluency or leave it blank so that we know you would like a new book.  Please ensure that your child is reading aloud to someone as this is an important aspect of reading every day to continue to develop their reading skills.  Don't worry I'll repeat all of this information in another blog post when the reading book system changes to nightly swaps so no need to try to remember it all -  just keep in mind that it is only every second night book swaps for now at it will change in the future :) 

 Please ensure that your child brings in their homework book and red reading folder everyday.  It is a good habit to put the homework folder, book and RED reading folder inside the school bag straight after your child is finished each afternoon or evening to help prevent it being forgotten. Bringing in each day also helps develop a consistent routine for later in the year and helps prevent us to try and remember which day we bring which book.  We will collect Homework Folders every Friday morning and keep them at school over the weekend so essentially Homework Folders need to be brought to school Tues, Wed, Thurs, Fri morning and homework can be completed every night Monday to Thursday.  We understand the many commitments our children have after school and our own work commitments so please feel free to do more on a certain 'free' night and skip those nights/afternoons that are extra busy in your household.  

Library Books

Our library day is on Monday afternoon where we can return and check-out new library books.  If your child would like to return it earlier they can bring it to school and keep it in their tray until Monday. 

Merit Awards

Congratulations to our award winners this week.  This was an extra special week because we have two very deserving recipients.  Billie received a merit award for her dedication to always try her best  - we are so proud of you Billie.  Finn also received a merit award for his consistent persistence to engage in his learning, listening and sharing his ideas with others and always putting in 100% effort.  Well done!

Box construction
We need your boxes! As a part of our Learning Centre rotations on a Friday, we would love it if you could bring in some small old boxes that we can use. Please bring them to the Early Childhood wet area when ever you can throughout the week.

Please feel free to email us with any questions at all you may have about your child, their learning or routines/happenings in our classroom.

Thank you for your on going support and assistance,

Penny and Gemma