Welcome aboard our Year 1 pirate galleon! Join us, if you dare, on a discovery voyage to learn what our Year 1 pirates have been up to this week. Brave readers, read on...
With a seemingly never-ending supply of exciting pirate picture books to read, the children have loved listening to the swashbuckling adventures, and even a few misadventures of Pirate Jake who wanted to go to school, Pirate Frank who crossed the treacherous seas in search of treasure and a firm favourite, Pirate Pete who had the smelliest feet. The stories have really captured the children’s imagination, making them laugh and inspired them to ask some very thought-provoking questions about life as a pirate. Our conversations inspired the children to want to make their own treasure maps. We talked about islands being land surrounded by water and then thought about what type of island might be most suitable to bury treasure on. The story, The Treasure of Pirate Frank provided the children with lots of interesting ideas and the children went on to add volcanoes, caves, forests, swamps and sandy coves before deciding to find the perfect spot to mark the buried treasure with a giant, red X.

The children have also been busy designing and making treasure chests this week. After bringing in a precious treasure from home, their favourite toy, the children listened to each other describing their treasure and enjoyed answering the thoughtful questions asked by their classmates. Thank you to everyone who was able to send in a shoe box as the children were then able to turn their designs into fabulous treasure chests fit for the finest of pirates!
During our Talk for Writing sessions, the children have proudly completed their stories about Sayeeda, the Pirate Princess. They really are terrific to read and the children amazed themselves at the quality and long length of their stories. The look of pride on their faces as they read them aloud was truly heart-warming! Planning to write their own poems has also been a very popular task this week.

In Mathematics this week, the children became magicians and with the wave of a wand we able to double numbers all the way up to 10, then 20 and then 100! The children understood the concept of number doubles so well that we then looked at near doubles. They quickly saw the connection that if double four is eight then 3+4 is just one less than eight – easy peasy!

Finally, in Science this week we investigated the different animal groups, sorting the small world plastic animals into mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians. We discovered lots of interesting facts about the different groups and learnt that we are part of the mammal family! It really has been another very productive week in Year 1.

YEAR 2

Everything is coming up penguins in Year 2 this week! Students are finding lots to be interested in as we take a closer look at the habitat of Penguins…did you know that there is a species of penguin called Macaroni? The tallest species, the Emperor penguin can grow taller than half of the students in the Year 2 class!!

While penguins will continue to be a topic of discussion for the next week, this week students are also learning about biography writing; Florence Nightingale is helping with this as we learn about when she was born, and what she has helped people during her time, right into ours…’keep clean’!

In Math we transition into multiplication matters: 2 times and 5 times tables have been looked at in more detail. Students learn how to show their work, using array, number grids, number lines, and word problems.

A productive week for Year 2! Looking forward to another great week…