Year 1

Assalamu Alaikum Families,

Both Year 1 classes have been very lucky this term to have two Preservice teachers completing their final teaching practicum.  The students in Year 1A have had Mrs. Kate Williams and Year 1B Miss Molly Coad who have provided the students with wonderful learning opportunities.  We wish both educators all the best in their future teaching endeavors.  

This term the students have been provided with many hands-on learning opportunities when learning about measurement and capacity.  The Year 1s had great fun measuring using informal units such as cubes and then extending this learning to centimetres and metres with tape measures and rulers.  We have also integrated this into literacy by reading many picture books where measurement is part of everyday life.

In English, we have continued with Jolly Grammar, where students are introduced to basic grammar rules, punctuation and terminology such as nouns and verbs just to name a few!

We thoroughly enjoyed our Book Week Celebrations and had fun wearing our favourite book character’s costume and reading many stories.  This also helped us when looking at the narrative writing structure which was our genre focus for this term.  Students even created their very first narrative and published their own stories.

This term in HASS we are learning about games and toys in the past and we were lucky enough to go on an excursion to the Tea Tree Gully Heritage Museum to play some of these games in real life!

For Health this term, students have been focusing on safety. We have looked at e-safety and the importance of being safe online. Students created posters that highlighted various online safety rules. We have learnt about early warning signs and have thought about what our bodies do when they start to feel unsafe. Students drew pictures of themselves and labelled their bodies to show the early warning signs their bodies make when they start to feel unsafe such as hearts beating fast, butterflies in the tummy and sweaty hands.

For Physical Education this term, students have been participating in team building and playground games. Some of the games that students have engaged in include: ‘Fun Treasure Hunt’, ‘Under the Bridge’, ‘It Takes Two’, ‘Hoop Racers’ and ‘Woopty Hoop’. It was fantastic to see the teamwork and collaboration between the students during our lessons. The students have thoroughly enjoyed building gross motor skills via this term’s tennis program.

For Islamic Studies this term, our focus has been on understanding the five pillars of Islam and the six pillars of faith. To show their understanding of the third pillar of Islam which is Zakah (charity), students worked in groups and discussed images of people living in poverty and recorded what they could do to help the people by giving Zakah. Students enjoyed completing an Islamic artwork by using strips of paper with the colours black, yellow and red to fill in a template of the Ka’bah to represent the fifth pillar of Islam which is Hajj (pilgrimage). Students showed their understanding of the fourth pillar of Islam which is Sawm (fasting) by answering questions such as what is fasting, when do Muslims fast and why is it important for Muslims to fast?

In The Arts, we have been building upon the artwork portfolio, which will be taken home at the end of the year Insha’Allah. As a way of combining HASS and Art, students also designed their own commonwealth games mascot by selecting an Australian animal of their choice to illustrate and represent in their own way. For their animal mascot, students needed to write a short story to describe their animal and explain why they chose their animal to be their mascot.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank you for all the support this term regarding your child’s learning.

Wassalam

Mrs Fernandez, Mrs Panos and Ms Emina Kosovac