Hello there!
It has been a busy time in the 1/2 team, gearing up for the end of the year!

MATHS
In Maths we have been learning about Place Value and Addition and Subtraction. This has involved representing just right numbers in a variety of ways such as: ordering numbers form smallest to largest, writing them in standard, word and expanded forms and placing them on number lines. We've been building our ability to read worded, multi-step addition and subtraction problems and solve them. Stay tuned to Compass for your child's results from our place value assessment task which will be uploaded to the site soon. This means you get faster feedback about their performance than waiting for the end of semester report.

READING
During Reader's Workshop, we have continued to work on our Grammar Books, investigating homographs and homophones, plurals and onomatopoeia. Students were really engaged in making their books and they look fantastic! In the following week we have been making lots of text to text and text to world connections by reading about a range of unfamiliar celebrations such as St Patrick's Day, Thanksgiving and Diwali. Using the iPads we record what we have learnt about these celebrations and compare them with each other on the app Poplet. This also ties into our work in Inquiry on Celebrations.

WRITING
Students have been immersed in different types of poems and drafted some of their own. Taking these drafts, students have worked through the final phases of the Writing Cycle, revising, editing and publishing them into poetic masterpieces!

INQUIRY
In Inquiry, we have been exploring some of the less-familiar celebrations mentioned above and beginning to complete some crafty activities to enhance our learning!

Until next time,
Mr Pidd and the 1/2 Team

​What a busy two weeks it has been.
 
MATHS
In Maths, we have deepened our exploration into the measurement of mass and capacity. Using different and new strategies to measure which is heavier; by hefting and looking at the formal units of gram, kilograms and tonnes. As well as measuring capacity by; finding out which container can hold more and measuring water using litres and millilitres.
This week we revisited time and broadened our focus to reading different digital and analogue times. We have worked on o’clock, half past, quarter past, quarter to and minute times, as well as identifying times throughout the day and ordering them.
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READING
In reading, the grade 1/2’s have been looking into the structures and features different texts have and how we can identify what type of text we are reading. We focused on non fiction texts, narrative texts, persuasive and procedural texts.
This week we have been learning how to identify, nouns, verbs, adjectives, conjunctions and past, present and future tense. Students have created their own grammar book, by reading through their ‘just right’ books and identifying these words and writing them in their grammar books. These book will be great to refer to in our writer’s workshops to add colorful, fresh, exciting and snappy words.
 
WRITING
In Writing, we have been moving through the writing cycle to publish a persuasive piece. Past weeks we explored many different types of persuasive texts and began drafting our pieces. This week I have seen some amazing and very convincing published persuasive pieces on topics ranging from getting a class pet, having lollipops every day to wearing casual clothes to school.













INQUIRY
We have just concluded another brilliant inquiry topic on ‘Weather impacts upon our lives’. Student created some very informative weather reports on their chosen extreme weather.
This week we started unpacking our new inquiry topic on ‘Beliefs influence our celebrations’. We are looking into the all different things people celebrate and how people celebrate them. In the future week students will be each choosing a different celebration and creating an invitation for it. Stay tuned to see what magnificent celebrations student come up with.
 
Until next time,
Miss Ritchie and the 1/2 Team