Prep

Our Prep cohort has made impressive strides in Term 1 as they began their schooling journey. They have adopted life as a KEFAR learner with great enthusiasm and are committed to helping each other “Be Like KEFAR”. It has been a pleasure to witness students forming and strengthening trusting bonds with their peers, teachers and buddies to help them feel safe and settled at school.

Literacy (Reading, Writing and Speaking and Listening)

Our Literacy learning this term will support students in building, writing and reading simple words with two and three sounds. They will do this by breaking the words into individual sounds and then blending the sounds back together to read and write the word. Students will be learning how to hold a pencil with a tripod grip to help them form the letters correctly. Handwriting will be practised daily.

Each day, students will be listening to a wide variety of rich picture books and taking part in class discussions. We will learn about nouns and verbs and how to form a simple oral sentence. Students will practise how to communicate orally by speaking in full sentences. They will learn to take turns when speaking and listening in small groups and whole class discussions. They will also learn how to communicate how they are feeling to their peers and teachers.

Numeracy

This term in Numeracy, we are learning to count forwards and backwards by 1s to 10 and beyond. Students will be naming and representing numbers to 10 using counters and objects. We will practise counting strategies to ensure we can trust our count. Students will also practise handwriting numbers daily. Accurate formation of numbers 0 to 9 will be our main focus this term. As part of our daily routine, we track and count how many days we have been at school and link the Days of the Week to familiar recurring events.

Marvellous Me and The Resilience Project

This term, our Inquiry unit of study is “Marvellous Me”. We will focus on what makes us unique, our likes and dislikes, our talents and strengths. We will also learn about the Zones of Regulation and how to recognise and regulate our emotions. Additionally, we will be learning about our KEFAR values and what it means to “Be like KEFAR”. The Resilience Project further immerses us in strategies for recognising and managing our emotions.

Independence

We have already seen fantastic growth in students building their independence. Some ways you can further assist with this is to encourage them to pack their own school bags and check that they have tools necessary for the school day, such as a drink bottle, a fully charged iPad, headphones, their hat and their library book (on relevant days). Our goal is for students to walk into the classroom independently and confidently by bringing in their own bag and waving goodbye to you at the door.

Thank you for your support,

The Prep Team

Grade 1

In Literacy, students will continue to build on their knowledge of phonics through the Sounds Write program by practising the skills of segmenting, blending and phoneme manipulation. They will continue reinforcing the conceptual knowledge that a sound may be spelled by 1, 2, 3 or 4 letters. As writers, students will continue practising letter formation to assist them to become fluent writers. We will be working towards writing a range of sentence structures correctly including the use of nouns, verbs, adjectives and conjunctions. Students will learn to retell and write narratives using ‘story grammar’ from fictional texts read in class including the characters, setting, problem, feeling and ending. They will be supported to explore and use new vocabulary in their writing and to sequence the events correctly.

In Numeracy, the students will develop their ability to count forwards and backwards from different starting points to 40 and understand and apply place value when representing 2-digit numbers. They will also explore number bonds in relation to addition and subtraction to 20. Students will develop their understanding when measuring and comparing mass, telling the time to o’clock and half past and classifying two-dimensional shapes. They will have the opportunity to practise and consolidate their understanding of all concepts through participating in Daily Review.

Our Inquiry unit is ‘I Belong, You Belong.’ Students will explore friendships and the qualities of a good friend. They will learn to identify their own feelings and strategies to solve problems in positive ways. Students will also describe ways to include others and to make them feel that they belong.

Grade 2/3

The 2/3 students have had an amazing start to the school year. Everyone has settled into routines with all classes well into the double digits for ‘Lily Pads’ earned!

In Reading and Writing sessions, our students will focus on persuasive texts –understanding their purpose, identifying and forming opinions, and exploring the use of emotive language to enhance their writing. We will also read entertaining scripts in order to develop fluency and expression when reading aloud. Students will aim to make their own writing descriptive and interesting through the use of adjectives, nouns, adverbs and verbs. We will continue to implement the Sounds-Write program daily to build the students’ knowledge of letter sound patterns.

Maths classes will develop understanding of place value, reading and ordering numbers into the thousands and beyond, and practising to count forwards and back from various starting points. The students will build their confidence and number fluency as they work on addition and subtraction problems, including vertical algorithms with three and four digit numbers. Telling the time on an analogue clock is another skill we will work on this term; moving on from o’clock and half past times, we will focus on quarter past and quarter to times. If you have an analogue clock at home, this is something you could practise with your child.

Our Inquiry topic this term explores the diversity of various cultures, the different celebrations and traditions of each, providing students with the opportunity to explore their own heritage and the backgrounds of their peers.

Students are very fortunate to participate in the garden program with Trish where they will learn how to care for and cultivate plants, prepare the garden beds and possibly get their ‘Wheelbarrow License’.

Grade 4/5

Stereotypes, discrimination, prejudice, equality, equity and fairness are just some of the concepts the 4/5 students will be investigating in our term 1 Inquiry unit, Relationships and Diversity. Students will be exploring the characteristics of respectful relationships and suggest ways that kind and respectful relationships can be achieved. They will unpack and challenge stereotypes and discrimination in order to build an inclusive school environment and society.

In Reading lessons, our year 4/5 students are studying the enthralling page-turner, Wonder, by R. J. Palacio. Students have been making connections to the world and themselves through thought provoking discussions around the themes of the text. They are practising making inferences by analysing the characters’ verbal and non-verbal communication and combining it with their own existing knowledge. The year 4/5s respond to questions relating to the chapters, read each day, and justify their position using evidence from the text. We are unpacking new vocabulary and discussing why the author made certain word or phrase choices. As writers, we are exploring how to construct highly effective and cohesive persuasive texts. They are focusing on the structure of sentences, paragraphs and the overall text structure. Our year 4/5s are also focussed on improving their vocabulary choices and using several persuasive devices, such as emotive and figurative language, to engage and persuade their readers.

In Mathematics lessons, students review prior learning from across the mathematics curriculum, including number and algebra, measurement and geometry and statistics and probability concepts daily. The year 4/5 students are currently exploring the measurement of perimeter in metric units. They are learning to use effective strategies, such as repeated addition and multiplication, to find the perimeter of shapes and real objects and solve worded problems. We will continue to practise a variety of effective strategies to solve multiplication and division problems including those with larger numbers. We will also compare and order fractions, such as thirds, sixths, twelfths, fifths, tenths, and hundredths and identify equivalent fractions using real world examples, physical resources and algorithms.

Grade 6

In Reading this first term, each grade will read through the Morris Gleitzman novel, ‘Once.’ Morris Gleitzman brings heart and humour to the difficult subject of the Holocaust in this ground-breaking children's book. Told in simple yet powerful language. Throughout the unit, the students will discuss a wide range of topics and themes with their classmates. We will analyse the way the author chooses to portray World War 2, through the eyes of a 10-year-old boy, named Felix.

In Writing, the students will be focusing on narrative pieces. During this time, we will be focusing on sentence development, syntax, and punctuation. A large part of the teaching units will include planning, sentence structure, including sensory language and also revising and editing.

In Mathematics this term, the students will continue to work on the ‘Ochre Education & the Shaping Minds,’ programs. Here we will undertake daily reviews of the concepts introduced and also touching on future concepts. The areas that we will cover this term include order of operation, equivalent fractions, division where the remainder is written as a decimal and comparing fractions with unrelated denominators.

This term our Inquiry unit will be focused on Health and Wellbeing. An external organisation, Elephant Ed, will be running four health lessons between weeks 5 and 9. Other sessions within the classroom will include facts about gender and opportunity and the growing awareness about human rights.

Community Page