Year 1 Update – Wk 18
Everyone thoroughly enjoyed our trip to the theatre. The children were so excited to be sharing the experience with their school friends. We will have lots of inspiration and ideas to talk about in future drama and story/ poetry writing lessons.
We have been enjoying borrowing and reading our non fiction books and hope they have been enjoyed at home too. Please help to remind your children to bring both their books, in the red book bag, back to school on their library days. The children are very excited to borrow each week and feel very disappointed if they forget to return their books as they can not elect new ones to enjoy.
Thank you to everyone who helped their child bring a fruity snack on Friday. Fruity Friday has always been a popular thing at Beacon Hill and it is a great way to teach children about healthy and nutritious snack choices. “Research has revealed that what you eat affects your brain power- how much information you retain, how well you perform day – to -day tasks, and how well you remember names and vocabulary.” (www.prevention.com/health/improve-brain-function-food-6-brain-boosting-snacks.
Looking for an additional parent volunteer to help with rotations on January 24th and 31st. If you are able to help on either of these dates please contact your child’s class teacher.
Keeping our playground clean
This week lots of children bought cakes from the bake sale. Each cake is handed to the children in a tissue. Unfortunately tissue cannot be recycled in Hong Kong and so will now have to go to the landfills. Also, many children left bits of cake and tissue on the floor as they did not have a container to eat from. It would be great if on bake sale days the children could please bring a reusable container to school to put the cake in while they eat it to stop the rubbish problem. The next bake sale is at the beginning of February. Thank you very much!
Marie Marchand Parent Workshop
We are delighted to welcome back Marie Marchand to present at Beacon Hill School on January 31st from 6-8pm. This year’s focus will be positive behaviour management strategies for parents- Discipline without Shouting. Please see the details and sign up via the gateway https://tg.esf.edu.hk The cost will be $50 per person.
Marie is an excellent speaker- both entertaining and informative and we thoroughly recommend any parents from year 1-6 to come and enjoy her presentation
We will be moving back to look at place value of numbers bigger than 10 and also 20 this week. We will be looking at the ways numbers can be made of groups of tens and units/ones. Children will get the chance to use a range of maipulatives including place value cards and denies blocks.
This week we have a set of new tasks for the children to complete. Please spend some time each week exploring the different activities that we have set for the children. Under the ‘play’ section, children can practise their basic facts by playing games with partners from around the world. It is not intended that the children will do these tasks totally independently so please help your child to become familiar with the layout of Mathletics and how to go about completing the tasks. After Christmas there will be some new tasks set for your child.
Congratulations to the following children:
1L – Michael Borg
1P – Khloe Tam and Lincoln Liu
1W – Sophie Fong
Ready to Write
In order for young children to become successful writers, they must first be introduced to the pre-requisite skills in the proper
order. Every child progresses through these skills at a different rate based on his or her own individual levels of development.
What are fine motor skills?
Fine motor skills involve the small muscles of the body. These small muscles need to be developed because they are required for more advanced tasks such as writing, grasping small objects, and fastening clothing. When we refer to fine motor skills in the context of handwriting, we are typically referring to the small muscles in the hands and fingers used for writing.
Young children benefit from daily practice to help develop fine motor skills in their fingers and hands. Children should have strength and dexterity in their hands and fingers Before they can be expected to hold a pencil, or even master writing letters, children should develop the strength and dexterity in their hands and fingers to successfully accomplish these tasks without frustration or anxiety.
We help students strengthen those muscles in the classroom by providing fun, hands-on, and developmentally appropriate activities on a daily basis. These activities also help children develop an appropriate pencil grasp when they are ready.
What can parents do at home to help?
Attached you will find a list of recommended activities you can do at home with your child using supplies you may already have on hand, or they can be purchased at the dollar store.
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Ready to Write
✓ Play with play dough.
✓ Use a rolling pin to roll play dough.
✓ Roll “snakes” with play dough using palms of hands.
✓ Roll play dough into tiny balls using only the finger tips.
✓ Use a spray bottle filled with water to spray plants indoors or outside.
✓ Add food coloring to water in a spray bottle and spray designs in snow.
✓ Cut a length of yarn or twine and invite your child to string Cheerios or macaroni.
✓ Tear paper.
✓ Pick up objects like cotton balls or pom-poms using spring-loaded clothespins.
✓ Transfer each object from a bowl to an egg carton or an ice cube tray to make it more interesting.
✓ Cut junk mail, especially thick paper.
✓ Cut play dough with plastic scissors.
✓ Cut plastic, disposable straws or shredded paper.
