Grade 1/2L

The students in 1/2L have settled in beautifully and are well into their learning, building routines and embracing new challenges with enthusiasm. It’s been wonderful to see their confidence grow as they engage in different activities. We had a fantastic time at the Polwarth Sports, giving our best effort, showing great sportsmanship, and having fun with our friends. With House Sports coming up next week, we can’t wait for more friendly competition! We have also celebrated Harmony Week by wearing a splash of orange and completing activities to explore the importance of inclusivity and belonging. We were thrilled to meet Geelong Cats players Rhys Stanley and Bailey Smith during a special AFL clinic (teachers included!).

Our mornings are super busy filled with literacy learning. Our daily review has been a fantastic addition to our literacy block, strengthening what we have previously learned and helping us feel more confident by revisiting past topics. In Sounds Write, we have explored how suffixes and prefixes change words, broken down base words, and tackled more challenging polysyllabic vocabulary as we dive into trickier sounds and spellings. Our handwriting continues to improve beautifully, with great progress in using dotted thirds to ensure our ideas are easily shared with others. In our text-based units, The Imagineer sparked creativity as we described characters with interesting adjectives, while Rose Meets Mr Wintergarten helped us explore how stories are structured and how descriptive language brings them to life. We especially loved learning new and interesting words and finding ways to use them in our writing, including our weekly Quick Writes! In sentence work, Grade Ones have been focusing on pronouns, while Grade Twos have learned about proper and common nouns.

Maths has been an exciting mix of hands-on exploration and real-world connections in 1/2L! In Measurement, we explored length, mass, volume, and capacity using informal units. Through engaging, practical activities, we compared and measured objects, developing a strong understanding of mathematical language along the way. In Statistics, we focused on collecting and organising data using tally marks before displaying it in bar graphs. To bring our learning to life, we took a walk around town to count and graph car colours and even used Skittles to create and interpret graphs—definitely the tastiest maths lesson yet! Our Place Value work has centred on subitising, helping us recognise and count small collections quickly. We’ve had lots of fun practising through games and will continue building on this by moving into and exploring partitioning and breaking numbers apart to strengthen our understanding of place value.

This term, our Inquiry sessions have focused on our school values—CARE—exploring what they mean and how they look, sound, and feel in our school community. The Grade 1/2s engaged in thoughtful discussions about the importance of these values, and it has been wonderful to see them putting them into action in the classroom and the schoolyard. We also celebrated Harmony Day, taking part in activities that reinforced the message that everyone belongs. It was a great opportunity to reflect on both our differences and similarities and appreciate the diversity within our school. Through our Respectful Relationships program, we have been learning about different emotions and where they sit within the Zones of Regulation, how to recognise them in ourselves and others, and strategies to manage them. Role-playing and brainstorming helped us develop useful coping strategies to navigate different situations.

It’s been a busy and rewarding term in 1/2L, with plenty of learning, growth, and laughter along the way! With the well-deserved holiday break just around the corner, we’re excited to see what Term 2 will bring.

- Miss Lowe