First Class

Mr. Murphy, Miss Diskin and Miss.

Reilly

Contents

•Greeting from Principal

•Literacy

•Numeracy

•Homework

•First Class Curriculum

English• Readers-sent home daily with reading for

homework listed. Reading homework should be

signed each night.

• Focus on reading and comprehension strategies

e.g. questioning, prediction and summarisation.

• Asking them questions, summarise what they’ve

read, talk about the characters, find tricky words

to practise, retell the story etc.

• Join the library

• Dolch words-220 in total-10 a week. This will

greatly help your child’s reading fluency and

comprehension.

• Spellings-10 a week, based on a sound such as ch,

sh and including two tricky words. Everyday,

children will make up sentences with their new

spellings.

• Spellings-Look, Cover, Write, Check, shapes of the

letter, sounding it out, spell it as its written.

Writing• Three types of writing, a recount-my summer

holidays, my news, procedural-how to make rice

crispie buns and narrative-writing stories.

• Practise writing at home-getting your child to help

with writing a shopping list, a card, letters.

• Free Writing Copy.

• Sunday evening/Monday morning revise your childs

news to prepare them for recount writing lessons

throughout the week.

Oral Language

• Talking to your child about their day.

• Who, When, What, Where Why, How?

• Poetry

• Readers

• Curriculum- integrated in every subject

Maths• Number-addition with renaming, subtraction.

• Large emphasis this year on place value, tens

units i.e. 43 is 4 tens and 3 units.

• Tables both addition and subtraction.

• Counting in 2’s, 5’s and tens, doubles and halves.

• Hundred Square, Number Line, Snakes and

Ladders.

Maths• Shapes-2d, 3d, language of space-beside, between, left,

right etc.

• Measures-litres, metres, kilograms, up to 50c, and

telling the time in half hours and hours.

• Use mathematical language at home – plus, add,

minus, take away, subtract, equals, altogether makes.

• Concrete materials.

• Maths Time/Table champions

Counting at home• Start on numbers other than one.

• Counting forwards and backwards.

• Specific focus on the ‘teen’ numbers e.g. 14, 17.

• Counting across a ten e.g. 19, 20, 21 - forwards and

backwards.

• Counting games.

Homework• You child’s homework should take no longer than 40

minutes each night.• Sign homework journal, reading homework and test

notebook each week.• Spellings- 10 spellings for the week (take 2-3 each night)

revise all on Thursday night for test on Friday.• Sentences- based on spellings (1-3 Monday, 4-6 Tuesday, 7-

8 Wednesday, 9-10 Thursday).• Dolch list: 10 words per week that your child needs to be to

read and recognise.• Tables: learn tables off by heart as well as filling in the

book .• Mental Maths: Monday-Thursday as indicated in the book.

Please help your child with the estimates.

Gaeilge

•Emphasis in school is on speaking Irish and

being able to follow instructions in Irish.

• Getting your child to teach you a few phrases.

• Looking for Irish in the local community.

•Tg4

SESE-Geography, History and Science• Local Environment, develop knowledge of other

countries and areas e.g. Artic and Antartica. • Stories-Óisín in Tír na nÓg, Children of Lir.• Changes-in themselves, toys, clothes, community,

environment etc.• Historical events e.g. The Great Fire of London.• Would welcome volunteers to talk about their

country, toys they played with when young, talk about your job, somebody with a new baby, story telling etc, teaching a game they learned when young, talking about different festivals.• Plants, Seasons, heat, light, lifecycles etc.

Other Subjects• Drama, Music, Art-Any parents with a particular

interest in any of these areas, please feel free to

volunteer.

• P. E. –Swimming, Games, Athletics for this term. After

Christmas-dance, gymnastics, games and orienteering.

• SPHE-Stay Safe, Road Safety, Water Safety, themselves

and their families.

• Goodness Me, Goodness You.

Themes• September – Myself, my family, my home.

• October – Changes (school now and then, clothes in the past).

• November - All around me(Local area, mapping, people at work).

• December – Traditions and winter.

Themes• January – The Earth and Space (North and

South Pole, Solar system).

• February – The elements (fire, water, wind).

•March- Nature and Spring.

• April – Transport (Titanic, Amelia Earhart).

Themes•May – Games ( The Olympics, Greece).

• June – Summer.

Questions?