14 Sep 2018

Year 1 Update – Week 4

Thursday 20th September: Children can bring $20 to buy something from our Mid Autumn Festival Market stall in their Mandarin lessons. Please put their money in a named purse.

Monday 24th September: School closed for staff training

Tuesday 25th September: School closed for the Public Holiday

Parent Teacher Consultations

Our first Parent Teacher Consultations this year will be on Tuesday 9^th and Thursday 11^thOctober. This is a valuable opportunity for you to find out more about your child’s learning in Inquiry, English and Mathematics through conversation with their class teacher. Bookings for appointments are made through the Gateway and this is available for families with more than one child at school from 3 pm Monday 17th September and for all our families from 3 pm Friday 21^st September. This means that families with more than one child in school can get appointments on the same day. For more details please see this week’s school newsletter. https://www.beaconhill.edu.hk/bhs-news/#newsletter-2018-19

A very busy week has come to an end. The children have really settled into the routines and are becoming more familiar with their timetables and different teachers. Friendships are being cemented and children are thinking more about how they can make good choices when learning together.

We have thought more deeply about what it means to be a good listener and how listening helps us in different situations. We continue to train our listening and concentration through different games and some yoga and meditation times. We have written labels for our classroom and built numbers in different ways. Many children have shown a positive attitude to trying new things and are starting to have a go even if they are a little unsure.

The children have celebrated the achievements of other students in Golden Book Assembly and have enjoyed watching a class assembly presented by 3W about positive thoughts and how to calm ourselves.

The central idea for this unit is: We connect with each other to create learning communities

The lines of inquiry for this unit are:

How we can get to know each other and ourselves (Connection)
Different types of learning and play (Form)
How to make our classroom a place for successful for learning (Function)

Next week we will start to explore the concept of communities. We are aiming to build the children’s understanding that they are part of a learning community and have responsibilities connected to their classroom, other students and themselves.

We will become detectives and try to spot the ways others are using their listening skills and how they are aware of the space around them. We hope that the children will be able to see how good listening can help their learning and personal relationships. We are also going to focus on how we use and move around the space in the school. We need to be mindful of others and change our actions and movements accordingly.

We will continue to reflect on how we put our skills into practise and remember the different ways we can communicate as we play with others.

Uniform

It is lovely to see the children looking so smart in their new BHS school uniforms. Please make sure that your child wears their PE uniform on the days when they have FMS and PE. Please remember that the children need to wear only black shoes on uniform days not trainers. On PE days they need white trainers and socks.

We have noticed that a few children still do not have BHS hats. Please purchase a hat from our school PTA. The BHS school policy is that if they do not have a hat they are not able to play out in the sun.

Mathletics and Big Universe

This week your child will have received their Mathletics and Big Universe passwords. Please take the time to familiarise yourselves with these online resources and support your child each week in completing some of the Mathletics tasks and reading books together from Big Universe.

All of the children have now had the opportunity to visit our school library and borrow a picture book to share with you at home. Please make sure that your child brings their red BHS book bag and library book to school on their classes library day.

1L and 1W – Monday

1P – Friday

Library books are intended to be read and shared with an adult. Please do not expect that your child will be able to read this book independently. Please enjoy some special story time with a book that your child has chosen.

maths The focus of this unit will be for the children to be able to:

Count by naming numbers in sequences, to 20, moving from any starting point

Recognise, model, read, write and order numbers to 20

This week the children have been engaging in learning activities that have allowed them to develop their one to one counting skills, recognise numbers up to 20 and beyond and writing numbers to go with a collection of objects.

We have started looking at the way we can build numbers from smaller amounts and are starting to think about tens and ones. The children are exploring ways to show their numbers and are enjoying using the Numicon equipment.

We have been thinking about the order of numbers and will begin to think about what comes before or after a given number. We will also practise counting from different starting places, not just 1.

Mathletics:

Please help the children to complete the Mathletics tasks that have been assigned to your child. The children can also enjoy Maths Live and play other children live across the world.

Phonics:

Our phonemes for this unit are:

s m a c t g p o

Our camera words for this unit are:

she, to, are, I, the, was

We will continue to explore the different purposes for writing by continuing to think about labelling and also how we can write thank cards, notes and letters to thank people who have helped or been kind to us.

When reading together we will be spotting camera words and the focus sounds and also trying to take the time to think about the words we read and hear. The reading comprehension focus will be about making connections to the things we read and see in books and our own lives.

1L – Zayna Shams

1P – Thea Siu

1W – Kathryn Leung

The teachers have found some books through the Big Universe site that link to some of the ideas we have been talking about in class. Have a look through and see if can find any of the following titles to share with your children.