10 May 2019

Yr1 Curriculum Update -10/05/19

Working together to achieve success for every child

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s our 17th edition!

We write a regular newsletter keeping you up-to-date and informed about your child’s learning. This will provide you with a good understanding of happenings in Year 1 and how you can support these learning experiences.

 

Let’s Inquire – Sharing the Planet 

We kicked off our final term in Year 1 with a visit to the North Plaza Beach in Discovery Bay.  We took part in a beach clean up with the support and direction of Plastic Free Seas, a Hong Kong organisation dedicated to eradicating plastic from the oceans.  Students, teachers and parents worked hard to collect bags of single use plastic – cutlery, water bottles, bottle tops, straws etc.  We also found a huge fishing net that had been washed ashore.  There were lots of fished trapped inside who had died…and lots of crabs.  1W rescued 3 crabs.  However after we left Plastic Free Seas returned with scissors and a knife to rescue a further 16!

The learning from this trip has prompted many discussions around single use plastic, how we deal with our rubbish, “ghost nets” (fishing nets and lines that has come loose and continue to drift through the ocean catching fish and other animals).  We have sorted the rubbish we found and categorised it using the information to make graphs.  It took a long time to fully process everything that we had discovered from the beach clean up.  What we found out has led us to new questions and things we would like to discover more about.

We have been reading to find out information and then use this new information to create our own writing.  We have to understand what we have read so that we can process the information and create our own sentences.  We are concentrating on “writing to inform” currently.  In our classes we are finding out and writing about the 6R’s and endangered animals.  Some classes are creating non-fiction books with their writing.

 

Mathematics

We are continuing to explore the concept of adding two groups together.  We are starting to investigate and use the part, part, whole strategies.  We are thinking how this can help us and how we can make our recording of information easier for other people to understand what we have recorded.  We are using a variety of manipulatives to support our learning – cubes, numicon, counting sticks etc.

 

Mandarin

Year 1 children are inquiring into Chinese learning through songs, stories and rhymes. Different learning opportunities are provided for children to explore their interests and promote agentic learning.

Here’s a glimpse of the happenings in some of our classrooms:

If you have not purchased one yet, please be reminded KJS book bag will be required after Easter for children to borrow books from the library.

 

Friday 10 May                                   Bingo Night

Monday 13 May                                 Buddha’s Birthday – No school

Friday 24 May                                   ESF Festival of Dance

Thursday 6 June                               CPD – No school

Friday 7 June                                    Dragon Boat Festival – No school