PREP NEWS
Term 2 has certainly started well with our Integrated topic, “Safe and Sound”. Our Prep children were excited to have two visits with our local firefighters who spoke to them about good fires and bad fires. The children were taught to “get down low and go, go, go” and “Stop, drop, cover, roll” if their clothes catch fire. The firefighters came back with the truck and the children got to release the water from the firehose and see how far it reached. They heard the sirens, saw the flashing lights and one of the firemen dressed in his full uniform that he wears when entering a burning building. The children were fascinated with how many layers the fireman wore including face shield, helmet and oxygen tank.
The following week, we had a visit from our local police Sergeants who shared with us how they keep our community safe and what we need to do in an emergency. They talked about all of the different careers police can have and about their uniforms. The children walked around the police car, looked in the front and the back. Then the flashing lights and siren went ! Wow ! So loud !
What a great couple of weeks.
A special thank you to all of our wonderful mums who were able to join us for our Mothers Day and Prep breakfast on Friday 1st May. The children sang 3 beautiful songs to a standing ovation followed by a special activity in the classrooms. It was so wonderful to see the Mums and the children spending quality time together and enjoying the activity they completed together. Thank you to our Parents Association for supporting the breakfast by providing tea, coffee, juice boxes and lots of lovely pastries.
The children have had an amazing time exploring the different concepts of measurement in class. Students have also been learning about capacity, how much a container can hold. Students investigated the ideas of empty, half full, and full through fun, hands-on activities using water and sand. We compared different containers and discussed which held more or less. Children practised using this vocabulary to describe what they could see and explain their thinking, while also building their measurement skills.
We used unifix blocks to make towers and order them from long, longer and longest. Then we used the ruler to find objects that were longer than and shorter than. We posed the question whether our unifix blocks would be long enough to make it from the door to the mat in the Junior Hall? It was a great team activity and a lot of fun!
This week in Mathematics, our Prep students explored the concept of space and location through the story Rosie’s Walk by Pat Hutchins. After enjoying the story, students created their own maps to show Rosie’s journey, using location words such as across, under, around and through. It was wonderful to see students building their understanding of positional language while expressing their ideas creatively through drawing and mapping.
This week, Prep AY have been exploring Mass – things that are heavier, lighter or the same – “equal”. The students learned about “hefting” – using your arms as scales to explore the weight of items. We used the measuring scales with weights and items in our classroom to measure which was heavier, lighter or the same. Working in pairs, children were encouraged to estimate which item may be heavier or lighter and spent some time finding items that were equal weight. We then used our Coles catalogues to cut out items and glued them in heavier, lighter or equal.
