Montessori Yr 1/2 Term 2, 2023 Curriculum Overview

Term Overview

Welcome! 

Welcome back to Term 2, we hope you all had a restful holiday and that our students are ready to get back into learning! This term will be jam packed for both the teachers and students with different activities happening throughout the school. To stay up-to-date, please keep an eye on the regular school newsletter and school emails that are emailed out.

We would still appreciate your continued assistance in encouraging our students to maximise their independent skills. The expectation is that students should be able to enter the classroom in the morning by themselves, put their own lunch in the fridge, their own bag on the bag hooks and then get themselves ready for the day by going to the toilet, getting a drink, filling up their water bottle, sharpening their pencils before school starts and handing in homework folders when due. During class-time students will continue to build on these skills of independence via a variety of practical life skills such as answering the class phone, keeping the bookcase in order to cooking and cleaning up completely.  Our aim is to encourage the full-cycle of activity and a keen sense of order in all that our students do.  

Before School

We encourage parents to drop students off to school after 8:30am. If students arrive before this time, they are to sit in the COLA until the 8:30am bell.

QParents

QParents is here

Great news: Trinity Beach SS provides our parent community with the opportunity to register for QParents.

We will be sending out invitations for parents to register for QParents next week.  

QParents won’t replace the traditional ways you communicate with our school, but it will provide another way to communicate with us.

More information about QParents can be found at https://qparents.qld.edu.au/#/about

Attendance

How to report an absence: 

• Email attendance@trinitybeachss.eq.edu.au or
• Call the school's absence line on 4057 1444, then press #1 and don't forget to leave a reason why your child/children are away, or
• Send a note to the classroom teacher on their return

Our schools attendance target is 95% 

Reading / Spelling

We are continuing our work with our structured synthetic phonics approach implemented last year. This program includes:

Reading: Students work in guided reading groups 4 days per week, at similar levels to develop skills of comprehension, fluency and vocabulary. Students are tested at the beginning of each term/end of the term to determine their progress and new guided reading groups.

Spelling: Students work in ability groups with different goals, 4 days per week, developing their spelling skills.  Students are tested at the end of each term to determine their progress and new spelling words/groups.

English

During term 2, our children will continue to focus on the writing of procedure texts.  Last term they focused on enacting and writing procedures related to practical life skills. This term they will extend this knowledge to preparing healthy treats and possibly some art projects. They will continue practice skills such as expressing opinions, adapting ideas and comparing similarities and differences between text types as part of this genre study. Summative assessment for this writing task will occur by the end of this term.    

Maths

In math, this term, our children will partition collections into equal groups and skip count in twos, fives or tens to quantify collections to at least 120. They will also practise using numbers, symbols and objects to create skip counting patterns. In particular, they will focus on describing and repeating increasing and decreasing patterns, identifying the repeating units and missing elements. In addition to this, our students will continue the  study of geometry to make, compare, classify shapes and objects using obvious features. They will particularly aim to compare and classify shapes, describing features using formal spatial terms.

Science

This semester our year one and two students will participate in guided investigations of toys. The year ones will work to describe toys and the effects of interacting with them, make predictions and respond to questions.  The year two children will investigate and report on the push and pull forces that cause the toys to move and describe how changes made to the toys could affect movement. To compliment the investigation of forces this term, elements of Montessori’s 6-12 Cosmic Science framework such as the telling of the Great Stories and opportunities to participate in cross-curricular related science tasks will also be offered. 

HASS

In History our year ones are learning about their own past.  We will explore the nature, diversity and structure of families; investigate the ways we commemorate past events that are important; and recognise how family stories are shared and remembered.  Children will draw a picture of events they have commemorated with their families and respond to questions about those events and family members.  Children will identify, describe and sequence personal and family events and describe things that have stayed the same and things that have changed.

Our year two students will describe a person, site and/or event of significance in the local community and explain why places are important to people. They will explore and recognize that the world is divided into geographic divisions and that places can be described at different scales. Students will also describe how people in different places are connected to each other and identify factors that influence these connections. 

HPE

Students in year one will continue to develop the fundamental movement skills of dodging and running and test alternatives to evade others and objects in tagging games. They will also explore running, jumping and throwing activities and take part in simple challenges and competitions in athletics. .

Students in year two will continue to demonstrate fundamental skills to test alternatives to solve movement challenges and reach their targets in different games and sports. They will also explore running, jumping and throwing activities and take part in simple challenges and competitions in athletics. 

Music

In this unit, students in year 1 will learn main rhythmical elements – Ta, Ti-ti, Za, Vah and Great Vah. They will explore sounds as they learn to listen to and make rhythmical patterns using a variety of percussion instruments. They will also learn to discriminate between long and short sounds and silence.

Students in year 2 will appreciate and analyse the music of Saint-Saens. They will consolidate their knowledge of rhythmical elements – Ta, Ti-ti and Za and learn tika-tika (semiquavers). Students will create and perform different rhythmical patterns using known rhythmical elements.  They will learn about tuned and un-tuned percussion instruments and use these to produce rhythmical ostinatos. Students will be introduced to the musical forms of the canon, A form and AB form by singing different songs. They will consolidate their knowledge of the pentatonic scale.

Visual Arts

This term in Visual Arts, Montessori students will explore the wonderful things to see ‘Up in the Sky’. We will discuss images found in books and look at various famous artworks. Students will build on their collage skills as well as learn different techniques with an array of materials. These will be assembled to create their artwork for this term.  This will conclude our studies of Visual Arts for the students that have been participating this semester.

Drama

Year 1

‘Toyworld’

In this unit students will explore the world of toys through improvisation, movement and storytelling. They will base a character on their favourite toy and bring it to life!

Year 2

‘The Pied Piper of Hamelin’

 Students explore the legend of The Pied Piper of Hamelin and consider how the parents of the missing children would have felt (empathy). They make choices about the roles of the Pied Piper, the mayor and the parents of the missing children as they participate in a process drama. The students explore ideas and solutions by participating in the developing drama and, while in role, share these with others.

Assessment Schedule

Contact Information

Contact your childs teacher via email: 

1/2A - Kat Davies   kdavi226@eq.edu.au                   

1/2B - Jac Williams   jwill68@eq.edu.au

Specialist Teachers

HPE - Jodie Donovan jdono63@eq.edu.au

HPE - Rochelle Powell rapow1@eq.edu.au

Visual Arts - Vaness Graham vgrah5@eq.edu.au

Music - Svetlana Walker swalk146@eq.edu.au

Drama - David Terry dater1@eq.edu.au

HPE/Technology/Drama - Karen Arthur kaart0@eq.edu.au

Technology - Jacqui Kidney jkidn6@eq.edu.au