KINDERGARTEN

Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Primary School provides a range of holistic learning experiences to enable students to:

• Participate in the life and mission of the school.
• Deepen their knowledge and engagement with the Catholic faith and tradition.
• Build capacity to continuously reason, reflectively, logically and critically.
• Embrace interdependence of human existence as global citizens, who are responsible to and for themselves and others.
• Engage in learning in a multitude of ways, through personalised and self-paced learning.

Religious Education

K.1 Welcome 

This unit establishes simple prayer routines with a focus on the Sign of the Cross, key symbols and religious objects in the school and parish environment. The unit introduces sacred space, a prayer place and the importance of time to pray. Through the use of the Christ candle, children are introduced to the image of Jesus, as the light of the world. The foundational image of Jesus as the Good Shepherd is also presented through the Gospel story. 

K.2 Lent and Holy Week 

This unit presents the stories of ‘The Lost Sheep’, ‘The Washing of the Feet’ and ‘The Last Supper’. Through these stories, and in keeping with the season of Lent and Holy Week, the students are introduced to Jesus and learn of his love for us. 

English

Reading fluency and reading comprehension 

The children will be developing skills and strategies to begin to read words. Children will learn to recall details of texts and identify who, what, when, where and why. The students will be encouraged to use background knowledge when identifying connections between a text, own life, other texts and/or the world. 

Creating written texts

The children will practise recording sounds that we hear in words as well as writing out high frequency words. We are emphasising writing left to right across the page, leaving spaces in between words and understanding the use of capital letters and full stops in a sentence. Students will learn to write using draw, talk, write, share to help build confidence and proficiency. 

Handwriting

The children this term will learn to write letters of the alphabet using a stable posture when handwriting or drawing by sitting with their feet flat on the floor, the writing arm resting on a table, with the opposite hand resting on the paper and shoulders relaxed. They will trace fluency patterns and track letters to assist their fine motor skills required in writing.

Spelling and Phonemic awareness:

The students will be introduced to the ‘Sound Waves Spelling’ Program. Sound Waves is a word study program designed to develop reading, spelling and writing skills through phonemic awareness. Phonemic awareness is essentially a knowledge and understanding of the sounds and sound patterns of our language. The children will be introduced to the letter sounds of consonants, long and short vowels and some digraphs. They will be blending sounds to make words. 

Mathematics

In the first term of Kindergarten students are introduced to early mathematical concepts from the NSW Syllabus. Activities are differentiated to cater for all student needs and abilities. 

The topics taught in Term 1 are:

• Non-spatial Measure (Time) - Students will order the duration of events and connect the days of the week to familiar events. 
• Geometric Measure (Position) - Students will describe their positions and movements. 
• Data - Students will respond to questions, collect information and discuss possible outcomes of activities. 
• Forming Groups - Students will copy, continue and create patterns.
• Representing Numbers - Students will recognise number patterns and use the counting sequence of ones flexibly. 
• 3D Spatial Structure (3D Objects) - Students will explore familiar three-dimensional objects.  
• 2D Spatial Structure (2D Shapes) - Students will sort, describe, represent and name familiar shapes.

Students will also focus on subitising and recognising number patterns for 1-9 and counting forwards and backwards by ones. 

Science and Technology

In the ‘What’s it made of?’ program, the children will inquire about and explore the observable properties of various materials and why the properties of materials affect their use. They will begin to explore the design process.

Geography

The children will participate in a unit titled, ‘People Live in Places'. This unit provides opportunities for students to explore places they live in and belong to.

Personal Development, Health and Physical Education

In Term 1, students will engage in physical activity that aims to develop their gross motor and fundamental movement skills. Students will be working on developing their locomotive and non-locomotor skills such as running, balancing, jumping, catching and dancing through various games and sports. Students will also be provided with opportunities to develop their self-confidence and communication skills through team-building games and initiatives.

A program titled ‘Open Parachute’ will be implemented K - Y6. Open Parachute aims to provide practical support on mental health to students. The program aims to reduce stigma and generate authentic dialogue in classrooms about the real issues students face. The psychological skill-building exercises aim to increase empathy, self-compassion, self-awareness, mental health literacy, and self-efficacy in students

Creative Arts

Creative Arts incorporates Music, Visual Arts and Drama. The Creative Arts program will link to our Literacy program as students explore and build understandings of texts through various creative media. 

Mandarin

Our students will participate in the Chinese language program called the Meg Language Program. The Meg Curriculum is written by the co-author of the Australian Curriculum. All students and teachers will participate in the digital learning platform via Zoom weekly sessions with educators in China.

Homework 

Kindergarten will begin homework in the coming weeks. This will consist of a list of the Term 1 tricky words and a counting program designed to build fluency with number recall and formation. More details will be sent home to explain this closer to the date.

We look forward to continuing to work with you and your child this term. If you have any concerns, please do not hesitate to contact your child’s teacher via a note, email or by appointment through the school office. 

Miss Mikayla Giovenco (KBlue)

Miss Hayley Wilson (KGold)

Mrs Danielle Suttor and Mrs Peta Devlin (KWhite)

Important Dates for Year Kindergarten

Sport 

Sport days for Kindergarten are as follows:

KBlue - Wednesday and Thursday

KGold - Wednesday and Thursday

KWhite - Wednesday and Thursday

Students are to wear their sports uniform on these days. 

Library 

Each week, students will have the opportunity to borrow books from our school library. Please ensure your child brings their Library Bag to school.  

KBlue - Wednesday

KGold - Wednesday

KWhite - Wednesday

2024 - School Term 1

 Parent calendar available at this link