Year 1 Update – Week 6
Thursday 26th September and Wednesday 2nd October – Parent Consultations – We look forward to seeing you all there!
Monday 30th September – BHS CPD Day – School closed for the day.
Tuesday 1st October – Public Holiday – School closed.
Unfortunately this week the air quality at Beacon Hill School has been particularly bad which has meant the children have had to stay indoors at morning and afternoon break. During the afternoon breaks, the children have enjoyed drawing activities, dance and cosmic yoga!
In the upcoming weeks the children will start their Who We Are unit of inquiry and be investigating social skills and their interactions with others.
They will be focusing on the Central idea:
We connect with each other to create learning communities.
This week we have been continuing to explore the idea of sharing and taking turns and how we can ensure that our classrooms are happy places where we can all learn together. We have been exploring the Learner Profile attributes of caring, courageous and communicator and the children have been thinking of ways that they can show these attributes at school and at home. We have started exploring the idea of the children being “Play Detectives” throughout the school day and they have been thinking of things that they might be looking for in their roles as Play Detectives. Some of their ideas have included looking for children who are sharing, taking turns, using kind words and helping others.
Numbers can be used in many ways for different purposes in the real world.
This week in Maths the children have been exploring the concept of place value by learning to recognise, read, write and order numbers to 100. We have been focusing on how teen numbers are made up of tens and units eg: 14 = 10 + 4 and 18 = 10 + 8. The children have used the Numicon, Dienes blocks and arrow cards to explore this concept in a practical way.
Mathletics
Please help your child to complete the Mathletics tasks set for them and have fun playing Maths Live. It is expected that an adult will support your child whilst they are completing these tasks. If you have any difficulties using the website please let us know.
Writing helps us to connect and communicate
In English this week the children have been thinking about different types of writing and where they see writing in their environment. They came up with great ideas such as; messages, signs, letters, invitations, labels and cards. Over the coming weeks, we will be introducing the children to different types of writing and giving them the opportunity to have a go at creating their own books, cards, messages, lists and letters. The children are really starting to see themselves as writers and this has been so pleasing to see. Please support this at home by encouraging your child to have a go at using their phonic and camera word knowledge to write their own sentences. As we have mentioned before we really want the children to see themselves as writers and be keen and motivated to write for themselves. Please do not correct all words if they are not spelt correctly and celebrate your child’s efforts.
In Readers Workshop, the children have started learning about the thinking that needs to happen when they are reading. They have been creating their own “think mark” symbols which they have used to identify parts of a book that made them laugh, made them sad, made them happy and surprised them.
Phonics
This week we continued with our phonics sessions. We are still focusing on the first set of phonemes: s a t p o m g o c We will be teaching the children to blend the phonemes for reading and segment the phonemes for writing and spelling.
The camera words for this unit are: I the to was she are These are sight words and we teach the children to take a picture of these words in their mind.
Please continue to use the phonics bookmark that was sent home for games and activities that you can play together to support our phonics teaching.
Please also use the new laminated bookmarks that highlight the reading strategies that we are teaching the children in class to decode unknown words that they encounter when reading.
Get Ready to Talk
As we work on developing the children’s language skills, each week in the Weekly Update we will be asking you to take some time each week to sit with your child and talk about something linked to our unit of inquiry. This week we would like you to talk to your child about the types of writing that they can see at home or when they are out shopping or at the park etc. If the children would like to bring examples of writing into school we would love to see them.
1G – Vivian Sun
1L – Jayden Shek
1P – Paige Hung
Congratulations to all of our Golden Book winners this week.
PTA
Beacon Hill School has a wonderful Parent Teachers Association (PTA) that supports the school in so many ways throughout the year. The PTA would love to have some new Year One parents join the committee. It is a wonderful opportunity to get involved in the school community. If you think you would like to join the PTA please contact Mrs Pickering or your child’s class teacher and they will give you more details about how you can get involved. Thank you in advance.
Home Reading Books
The children are enjoying bringing their reading and library books home to read with you. Please can you help us by reminding the children to treat the books carefully by turning the pages nicely and keeping the books in the reading folder when they are not being used.
