The Axolotls: Term 2 Week 1

Dear families,

The children settled into Term 2 quickly and showed excitement to reconnect with teachers and friends. Here is a summary of our learning this week:

• Craft with Crafty Chris – exploring colour and tones. Painting with a power drill!
• Social skill focus – welcoming a new friend into the Axolotl class and including them in our play and learning.
• Introducing ‘talk partners’. Each child has been allocated a talk partner. On regular occasions they will be encouraged to talk/listen/collaborate in short discussions and experiences to support our learning. These partners are likely to change every few weeks.
• Learning about light and shadows in Science.
  Quotes from the children:
  “Astronauts make dark shadows on the moon.”
  “Some things reflect light.”
  “Sometimes the sun makes colour.”
  “Light comes from lamps. You need a surface to make a shadow.”
  “Can we put our hand in front of the sun to make a shadow?”
• In PDHPE, playing ‘hot potato’ outside and working as a team. Responding to the story ‘Colour monster’ and exploring how we express emotions.
• Sustaining on Friday, helping to care for our school.
• Spanish on Wednesday – dancing to the Spanish rock song ‘La Bamba’.

Juniors (Early Stage 1)

• Recording a holiday recount by drawing, sequencing a sentence, and writing a simple sentence.
• Mathematics – 2D shape names and features.
• Handwriting – wave lines

Elders (Stage 1)

• Recording a holiday recount by drawing, writing sentences, and using time connectives.
• Mathematics – exploring polygons and describing features.
• Handwriting – numerals.

Next week we will resume Literacy Stations (Monday/Tuesday mornings) for all children in Axolotl class.

When reflecting on how to best suit the needs of all individual children across both our class, and Faith’s class, we have decided to include our elders (Stage 1) children in Literacy stations in our own classroom this term. They will continue differentiated reading, phonics, and writing experiences suited to the Year 1 curriculum that mirrors the children at the same stage in Faith’s class. Our juniors (Early Stage 1) children will continue with early reading and phonics experiences during this time, in small groups. Please let me know if you have any questions.

Please remember that next Monday 27th April is a public holiday, so we look forward to welcoming the children back on Tuesday. Next Tuesday we start our new sports programme, beginning with soccer.

Have a lovely weekend everyone,
Joanna