Prep Term 3 Newsletter

To our wonderful parents and families of students in Prep,

Can you believe the Preps are over half way through the year? In this time, they have put in so much effort each day at school so they are stretching and growing as learners. Our Preps are excited to learn new things and when things in their learning get challenging, they are brave and know that it is ok to make mistakes. Although we are learning from home at the moment, we are amazed by their adaptability, enthusiasm and effort they have put into completing their home learning via Seesaw. Hopefully we return to school next Wednesday – please see Seesaw for updates! We have been enjoying our daily Webex sessions, where our students have enjoyed interacting with their peers and teacher. We have our fingers and toes crossed that we will be returning to school next Wednesday!  

We would like to thank all parents for helping your child with their home learning. We appreciate your time and effort to assist our students in their learning. If you are interested in helping in the classroom or on excursions this Semester, please see your child’s teacher. 

This term we will be celebrating the milestone of being at school for 100 days. We will be celebrating by dressing up like we are 100 years old (and so will the teachers!) Our students have enjoyed sharing their outfit ideas for the day! Our students will engage in a range of activities around ‘100’ for the day. This includes reflecting on their time in Prep so far, making ‘100 day’ crowns and participating in activities around the number 100, such as counting by 10’s to 100. We ask that students bring something healthy to share with the grade to help us celebrate.  

Your child has brought home a plastic pocket with a note about collecting 100 things. We look forward to all the interesting 100 things that we get back! Some children have discussed how they would like to collect 100 smarties, 100 band-aids or 100 paperclips! They have thought of some great things to collect! 

This term, the Preps will be exploring in our Unit of Work ‘I keep myself healthy and safe’. Our wonderful Preps have already shared the ways the many ways they keep healthy by eating well and playing sports! They also enjoyed talking about the people who keep them safe, such as their family, teachers and people in the community such as the police, nurses and doctors. They have enjoyed using the Investigation play sessions to role play being a nurse, doctor or veterinarian with our classroom teddies! We have been in contact with a range of ‘Community Helpers’ such as our local fire fighter and police to schedule a visit to school. 

Also just a reminder that we will be running a Swimming Program this year from 13th to the 17th September. For more information, please contact the office. 

What are we learning about in Reading:

This term we will be reading and having rich discussions about texts. Students engage in ‘text talks’, where they have the opportunity to share their thoughts about a text. This discussion enables students to fully engage and understand a text. 

We have started the term by immersing our students in a range of non-fiction texts. We are so very fortunate to have a wide range of age appropriate non-fiction texts for our students to read and enjoy during daily Reading sessions. Our students will learn to identify and explain the differences between a non-fiction and a fiction text. Our students will understand the purpose of each text and enjoy sharing interesting facts they have discovered! 

Later in the term, we will be immersing students in a range of narratives. Our students will learn about different characters and settings in a story. They will discuss the different ‘problems’ that might arise in a story. Our students will have the opportunity to read a range of narratives during daily reading sessions and in the Library.

At this stage in the year, we expect all the preps to know all the lower and uppercase letters of the alphabet. We are now exploring sounds. Our students have been making words with these letters. We have started with making CVC words (Eg. Bat, cat) Our students have enjoyed listening to the beginning, middle and end sounds and having a go at writing the word by themselves. Our students are also excited that if they know ‘at’ they can spell many words such as cat, rat and sat!

This term, our students will also be listening for sounds and trying to hear them in their reading. We are finding out which letter/s make that sound. Preps will begin exploring the /k/ (sound). They found the /k/ can be made by c, k, ck, ch. Amazing! Our students might enjoy sharing the different letters that make the one sound during nightly reading! 

What are we learning about in Writing:

We have been so proud of our very ‘brave’ Prep writers. They have been working independently, writing high frequency words and stretching out ‘tricky’ words and recording the sounds they hear. Each day they write their own message and make sure that their picture and words match. Our students have enjoyed writing about topics they care about and using the wonder cupboard or walking adventures to spark new ideas. They are practising to re-read their message to make sure they have all their words down. Our students will be making little ‘information books’ filled with facts about a topic of their choice that will be added to our classroom library. 

In the later part of the term, when we start going deeper into fiction texts, our students will also be writing their very own narrative, where they will create their own characters and settings! Our students have been inspired by other authors such as Eric Carle, and look forward to writing and publishing their very own book! 

What are we learning about in Mathematics:

It has been wonderful to see our young mathematicians become so confident knowing everything about numbers to ten! 

This term, our students will be exploring addition and subtraction. We are combining two or more numbers and showing with pictures, numbers and materials how many altogether. Our students will engage in a range of addition and subtraction ‘real life’ programs! To challenge our students we will be teaching the “count on” strategy where we hold the larger number in our head and count on to find the total. Knowing the combinations to ten (5 and 5, 7 and 3) is another important area of learning this term. We will all continue to support children to understand numbers to 20. 

Important Event Dates:

Specialist Timetable (When we return to school)

Thank you for your continued support and partnership. We can’t wait to see our children’s smiling faces at school next week. Please contact us if you have any questions about Seesaw or our return to school.

Daniela, Gail and Ashlee.