Dream time stories and Science Equipment needed

Good evening parents,

I hope you have had a restful weekend and enjoyed some of the little sunshine we got today!

Plastic Bottles needed!

In Science this week, we are creating our own clouds in a bottle. If you have any clear plastic bottles - with no labels at home, we would love to have them by this Thursday. Please drop them into class anytime this week. Thank you in advance :)

Dream time story study

The children have loved learning about our unit on Dream time stories so far this term. They have looked at a variety of stories and explored different comprehension strategies for each. The children have loved learning the meaning behind each of the stories and will eventually be writing their own story in the coming weeks. Last week, we looked at the story 'The Echidna and the shade tree'.  The children enjoyed creating their own echidna and designing their Aboriginal markings around their creation.

The children retold the story orally to a partner and also summarised the story in their own words in writing, a skill which we are working on throughout the term. They loved reading back their work and finding out that even though we all read the same story, we picked different things to include in our retell.

Below are some pictures of the children creating and writing their retell.

Miss Prowse

Week 2 Merit Award winners

Congratulations to Emerson and Cruz who were this weeks Merit Award winners. You are both Year One super stars!

Miss Prowse

Week 2 information and some clever Mathematicians

Good evening parents,

I can't believe that we have been back at school for a week already! The children have wasted no time at all and settled back into routines extremely well.

Think Mentals
Units 7 and 8 of Think Mentals are due this Friday. If you are unable to hand it in for any reason, please let me know. From the feedback I am hearing from children, they are quite enjoying completing the units and some are even breezing through them quite quickly.

Sight words
We are right back into sight word testing and Mrs Hughes has made a wonderful start in helping the children get prepared for their sight word tests. I am currently in the process of testing the children on their first 100 sight words - to see what they have retained and if they are using them in their writing. You may have also noticed our new desk mat designs which now include 'personal spelling words'. Each week, I will go through their writing and choose words that they may have spelt incorrectly so when this word comes up again, they will know how to spell it. This also provides them with a personalise spelling list which will aid their vocabulary and learn new sound patterns.

Hands down Subtraction stars
Over the last week, the Year Ones have been learning the skill of subtraction. We have learnt the strategy of 'Think big, count back' using a number line. The children have been taught to always start from the bigger number, use pictures to help them solve the problem and also use the jump strategy when subtracting numbers more than 10.

The class loved working in small group with myself,  to deconstruct how we can use a Think board to show our understanding of subtraction. We wrote a story, showed our understanding using hands on manipulative materials and we also drew a picture. The boys got very creative with their sum of 14-5 writing a story about a boy who ate boogies - gotta love the creativity!

See some of the pictures below of the children working together in small group activities.

We have some very clever mathematicians in our class!

Thanks you for your ongoing support

Miss Prowse

Week 1 Merit Award winners

Congratulations to our week 1 Merit Award winners Ameila and Sunny! You are both Year One super stars!

Miss Prowse

Welcome back to Term 3!

Good evening parents,

Welcome back to Term 3!

It has been a great start to the term and it has been wonderful to see the children after two weeks off. The children have come back ready and raring to go and I love their enthusiasm! A big welcome to Kane Appleton who began his time at OLC today :)

This term we are looking at a variety of topics and basing these concepts around the children's interests and ideas. We will be asking the children what they would like to learn about  in regards to these topics with a question box at the back of our room. The children always come up with some great ideas to guide their own learning!

Our writing focus this term will look at different types of Poetry and Narrative structure which will also incorporate Dream Time Stories. Our Math focus this term will be Money, 2D and 3D shapes, Measurement (capacity and length), addition and subtraction,  revision of skip counting (2's, 5's, 10's), basic fractions, place value revision and odd and even numbers.

In our HASS subjects we will have a focus on things from past and how children's daily lives differ from those of their parents or Grandparents childhoods.We will also be looking at a variety of Dream Time Stories and comparing these stories to our modern day activity of story telling.

In Science we will be exploring how we can observe changes in the sky and landscape and how this can affect our ability to care for natural, managed and constructed features.

Think Mentals

Today the children's Think Mentals books went home for homework and the children were very excited to get their beloved Maths books back!

This term, we will begin completing one unit per week. However I will only be collecting the books every two weeks for marking. I have chosen to collect the books every two weeks as I know that there are some week nights that the children have other commitments or family events that prevent them from completing particular days so I thought completing two units over two weeks might alleviate some of the pressure to get everything in on time.

Please refer to the schedule below which outlines when each of the units are due.

Think Mentals schedule
Weeks	Units and date
Week 1 and 2	Unit 7 and 8 due 28th July
Weeks 3 and 4	Unit 9 and 10 due 11th August
Weeks 5 and 6	Unit 11 and 12 due 25th August
Week 7 and 8	Unit 13 and 14 due 8th September
Weeks 9 and 10	Unit 15 and 16 due 22nd September

Thank you for your on going support with marking and providing your children with your feedback.

If you have any questions or queries, please don't hesitate to email me.

Miss Prowse