Grade 1 PYP Coffee Morning

Most of our grade one students came from our own Kindergarten where they had spent three years and relationships between students, teachers and parents were strong.  We wanted to continue to build on these relationships so decided that we would dedicate our first PYP Coffee Morning to grade 1 parents.  The objective of the informal meeting was for parents to get a glimpse or a snapshot of what learning looks like in grade 1, to talk about the learning process together and to explore some electronic resources that can be used at home to help support student learning.

We started off by asking parents to reflect on what they thought there should be more or less emphasis on in a grade 1 classroom.  As the session progressed, we asked that parents reflected on their initial thoughts.

What do you think there should be more / less emphasis on in a grade 1 classroom?

Parents discussing their beliefs on what should be emphasised in a grade 1 classroom

Next we watched a short video of a typical day in Grade 1 to see how learning was organised.

After this we listened to Naomi from 1B talk about the learning process and how we start by gathering one idea and many ideas, before connecting these ideas and going further (see the post on the SOLO Taxonomy).  We looked together at the learning outcomes for the next unit.  

After we had discussed the different resources we use with students, we then gave parents an opportunity to explore the electronic resources that can support learning at home.  These included Mathletics, Tumblebooks and Brainpop Junior.  You can find our school's login details for these sites in your daughter's agenda books. 

Finally, we finished by reflecting on the decreased / increased emphasis chart parents had used at the beginning of the session.  We displayed our own view (and that of the PYP) and discussed our philosophy of learning.  We would like to thank all the parents who took time to join us this morning and look forward to continuing to build relationships with all parents over the coming year. 

Our own and the PYP's opinion on what there should be more / less emphasis on in a grade 1 classroom