Year 1

1A – Sr. Shamin: “Assalamualaikum! I have been in this school for the last five years and I have enjoyed every minute of it.

I have three loves: love of learning, love of learners, and the love of bringing the first two loves together.

I strongly believe that early education is not about didactic instruction and information. It is about hands-on experience with the world of people, things, concepts and mentoring adults who help children understand how the world works and all that they are capable of. It is about discovering skills and knowledge, challenge and mastery.

May Allah make this year a total success for all of us In Sha Allah!”

1B – Sr. Sera: “I am passionate about the importance of early years learning and I am a big advocate for equal learning opportunities and play-based learning. I am excited to get to know your family and anything you would like to share about your goals and aspirations for your child. I look forward to learning and teaching with the class.”

1C – Sr. Ashley: “I am an early childhood teacher in my fourth year of teaching, this is my second year of teaching at AIC Kewdale. I strongly believe in the importance of early childhood education and firmly believe that all young children are unique and capable individuals. It is my mission to instil a deep-grounded love for learning in all my students. I diligently attempt to teach with passion every day so that my students may develop a desire to become ‘lifelong’ learners. I’m very much looking forward to getting to know your child and getting this year started!”

One of our primary goals at the beginning of the school year was to get to know our students. This is important for several reasons. The better we know our children, and the more they know we know them, the more invested they will become in school. 

Then gradually we delved into studies. Let us take a sneak peek on what we have learnt this term:

In literacy we mainly focused on reading and writing. When you read it fires up your imagination and stimulates the memory centres of your mind. It helps recall information as well as stabilize your emotions. The importance of a reading habit is that it strengthens mental muscles. In writing we followed the seven steps programme for narrative writing. They gradually gained confidence in writing a narrative. Apart from that we also put a lot of focus to develop their speaking skills as well as their spellings, grammar and comprehension skills.

Students in year 1 have been working very hard in Maths. We have been practicing our addition and subtraction.  Playing with shapes seems to be our favourite activity at the moment! In order to learn how shapes are different from one another, they’ll learnt to pay attention to the little details that distinguish shapes.

In history we had a great time exploring past and present-day family life while in geography we were learning about constructed, managed and natural resources. We went for walks, observed and discussed about our opinions and thoughts about different kinds of features.

Ma Sha Allah! Our little scientists are learning all about ‘Earth’s Resources’ and how they play a very important role for life on earth. We firmly that they form the basis of everything humans need to survive and that it is our duty to conserve them. We learnt about different types of clouds and rain and did an experiment called ‘Cloud in a Jar’. It was a great way of demonstrating how water moves out of clouds and produces rainy weather.

In art we have been learning about the famous artist called Jimmy Pike and did the ‘Rainbow Serpent’ artwork. We also used our creativity to create illusions called ‘Web of Lines’.  I would like to inform you that the teachers were greatly impressed by their students’ artwork and that we have some great future artists amongst us Alhamdullilah!

In Health we have been learning about how to give compliments to others, how to stay safe and all about team work. They also expressed their feelings on what makes them happy, sad, excited, annoyed and so on.

The little Year 1s learnt about the importance to eat something nutritious each morning to re-fuel for the busy day ahead. The ‘Healthy Breakfast’ was an ideal opportunity for the teachers to talk to their students about never skipping the first morning of the day and to always have a healthy breakfast.

The children took pride in showing their waste free lunch boxes to their peers contained packaging that could be composted or recycled, and nothing that could go into garbage bins and landfills. They said “It is our duty to keep our country clean and keep our world clean.”

This was a great way to inspire our students to learn about the impact of rubbish on their local environment while playing an active role in their community. It was a very special day when students and teachers worked together to clean up the school which is special to us all.

We celebrated Harmony Day in our own classes by holding discussions about the cultural diversity and how we might improve the world to make it more harmonious and a beautiful place. We also expressed our opinions by writing and making pretty posters!