Argus-Xenica

Prep Community - Michelle S, Dafina, Miranda, Sam, Chloe, Michelle H, Roslynne, Zeinab

Welcome to Term 4!

The children have been very excited to begin their last term in Prep. They have continued to show growth in their learning, confidence and ability to make and maintain friendships. The students have also exhibited their ability to apply what they have previously learnt in Terms 1, 2 and 3 to better understand new and interesting topics in Term 4.

Phonics

In Phonics students have learnt a lot of new High Frequency words: put, could, house, their, these, people, oh, about, there, into, now, came, Students have sounded out each word, practised spelling them, and used them in simple sentences. These activities help build confidence in reading and support early writing skills. To further support students knowledge of high frequency words, please ensure you are practising your child's allocated high frequency word list with them each day.

Students have also been learning to sound out and spell consonant-consonant-vowel-consonant- consonant (CCVCC words) such as frost, grand, spent, shrink, stump, branch, spring, splash, strong, scrub, crunch, smelt, drink, stamp, print, split, trunk, blink, trust, spend, stink, crept, blink, plant. Students can practice writing these words and putting them into simple sentences at home in their homework books.

Reading

The Prep students have been learning to notice, read and use new words and familiar words from stories. They have been learning to summarise the key details from story books and writing the beginning, middle and end. The students have been making text to self connections with books we read in class. Some of the stories that we have read so far have been All Are Welcome by Alexandra Penfold, where the story is talking about school and Whoever You Are by Mem Fox, where the story is talking about cultures and everyone is unique.

Writing

The Prep children have been learning about narratives and having a go at making their own. Their creative work starts with brainstorming their story's characters, setting, problem and solution. Then, they write the beginning, middle and end of their story. To make sure they are able to apply the writing rules, they use their writing checklist to check their work and improve their writing. Their favourite part is when they get to publish their work, which is when they use their neatest handwriting to write their story and draw their 5-star pictures. Their narratives are fantastic and clearly show how creative the Preps are! Well done!

Maths

Over the past couple of weeks in Maths, our Prep students have begun to learn about subtraction and what it means to take away a smaller number from a bigger number. They have learnt different strategies and materials and ways that they can work out the total number at the end. The hands on materials they have used have been counters, unifix cubes, popsicle sticks, tens frames, and number lines.

The Prep students also learnt about 3D shapes, they learnt what they're called, compared them to real like objects such as a sphere is the same shape as a basketball. They were able to recognise that each of the 3D shapes also have a face of a 2d shapes for example a cube face is a square.

SEL

In Social and Emotional learning, the Prep students have been learning to slow down and recognise different emotions and identify times they might feel the emotion. Students have been practising the skill of mindfulness and identifying different animals and their movements, associating these to mindfulness.

In RRRR, the Preps have been learning about gender stereotypes and how anyone can do anything they like, they aren't restricted based on their gender.

Inquiry

In Inquiry, the Prep students have been exploring the past and present through our exciting Inquiry Immersion Centres. Each centre focused on a different topic — School, Toys, Housing, Technology and Family. Students have been rotating through each one, getting hands-on with artefacts and pretending what life might have been like long ago.

They have been using their graphic organisers to draw and write what they saw, comparing how things were in the past to how they are today.

The Preps especially loved discovering old-fashioned toys, learning how people used to wash clothes, and seeing what classrooms looked like years ago!

It has been wonderful to see their curiosity and imagination come alive as they learn about how much our world has changed — and how some things have stayed just the same.