Prep Update

Our Prep students have had a great few weeks adjusting to school life and beginning their learning journey.

Our learning will entail the areas below:

Social and Emotional Learning (SEL):

-To recognise sounds that are associated with different emotions by becoming an 'emotions orchestra' - naming an emotion and making up a sound that someone may make when feeling that emotion.

-Todd and Rana from our Wellbeing Team will be visiting the Prep classes to run some activities around SEL.

English:

-Our phonics lessons will be focusing on the sound the letter ‘f’ makes and discovering words that begin with the sound.

-Continue to examine parts of a book with the use of a 'big book' story.

-Continue to practise writing their names, take part in fine-motor activities to strengthen fine-motor skills, practise forming the letter ‘f’ and building their drawing skills.

Maths:

-Explore concepts such as subitising, counting, forming digits and pattern.

-Take part in our maths ‘daily review’, focusing on counting, time, shape and position.

Inquiry:

-We will be exploring how families can be different and talk about the members of our families.

Information regarding Hillsmeade's approach to teaching phonics and Reading:

Teaching phonics and reading through Little Learners Love Literacy (LLLL)

At Hillsmeade PS, we utilise the LLLL framework in our Prep-Year 2 classrooms to support literacy development.

What is LLLL?

Little Learners Love Literacy is an explicit and sequential literacy approach for teaching children to read, write and spell with confidence based on the Science of Reading – a huge body of research that is currently prominent in educational circles.

LLLL explicitly introduces phonemes (sounds) and corresponding graphemes (written representation of sounds). It teaches children how to blend these phonemes together to read words. Concurrently, students learn to correctly form graphemes and use their letter-sound knowledge to spell and write words.

LLLL has seven stages. Whilst working in a particular stage, students will have access to texts, known as decodable readers, that contain words based predominantly on those sounds. This means students can use their knowledge to decode the words promoting fluency and developing their confidence. These readers will be utilised in the classroom and for home reading.

This week, your child will bring home a phonics book articulating the phonemes they are working on in the classroom as well as words they can decode to practise prior to commencing take home books. Students will then move to bringing home decodable readers at their level. 

Friendly Reminders:

-Please ensure that all of your child’s belongings are labelled, such as hats, jumpers and water bottles.

-Please remember to continue sending your child's hat to school with them.

-Library sessions will also begin next week. Please send your child's library bag to school. Classroom teachers will advise you on which day your child's library session will take place.

Please reach out to your child’s classroom teacher if you have any questions or queries. Prep teachers emails are as follows:

Prep A- Mrs Lloyd: natasha.lloyd@education.vic.gov.au

Prep B- Ms Rhimes: sarah.rhimes@education.vic.gov.au

Prep C- Mrs Herres: angela.herres@education.vic.gov.au

Prep D- Miss Papa: adrianna.papa2@education.vic.gov.au

Here are some photos of our Preps and their learning!