Prep 

INFORMATION

🗣️ Show and Share

Topic: A Family Heirloom or Precious Treasure

🎨 Specialist timetable

CURRICULUM

📚 Phonemic awareness: reading and phonics

We’re learning about the letter Y as an initial sound (as in Yellow) and X (as in boX. Please note - X rarely makes a Z sound!). Students will explore the phonemes (the sounds they makes), the graphemes (how they are written with correct formation) and the matching cued articulation action.

In addition, students will practise reading and writing CVC and CVCC/CCVC words using all the short vowels.

We’ll also review our Heart Words: look, book, are, was and learn the word you.

What can you do at home?

-Help your child read the take-home book, decodable passages, or CVC word cards from their book pocket together. **Aim for fluency by the second day of reading.

As your child reads, encourage them to read any words they recognise straight away, without needing to sound them out.

-Enjoy bedtime stories with your child to build vocabulary and a love for reading.

-If you're interested in learning about Cued Articulation, you can watch this helpful video by Jane Passey (the founder), where she explains and demonstrates each sound: Cued Articulation with Jane Passey

-Work through the optional UFLI home practice pages if you’d like some extra phonics practise at home.

📝 Literature: reading responses and writing 

Our Mentor Text is Festival of Colours by Kabir and Surishtha Sehgal. This story has been chosen as it connects to our CBL focus on diversity, celebrating themes of inclusivity, community and cultural traditions. Students will learn about the colourful celebration of Holi and compare it to our own school Colour Run, noticing similarities and differences between the two events. They’ll also sequence the steps to make Holi powder and have a go at some writing to explain the process. Inspired by the book, we’ll explore verbs through fun oral language activities before finishing the week with a creative burst - using chalk to design Holi-inspired artworks.

In Writing, students will continue using the letters they’ve learned so far to write independently formed sentences based on picture prompts. We’ll also be linking our writing to ideas from our Mentor Text. This week, we’ll focus on practising the correct formation of the letters Y and X, while revising all the letters we’ve introduced throughout the year.

What can you do at home?

-Play with things that develop fine motor skills like lego, playdough, drawing and building blocks.

-Help your child develop their pencil grip.

-Encourage your child to write simple sentences about a picture in a book or something they see around them.E.g. “The big frog can jump.” 

Letters/sounds we know: A, M, S, T , P, F, I, N, O, D, C, U, G, B, E, K, H, R, L W, J, Y and X

-Help your child sound out simple words when writing, reminding them to use the letter sounds they’ve learned and put a finger space between words.

🔢  Maths 

In maths, we will extend our part-part-whole thinking as we explore different ways to make numbers to 10. Students will use ten-frames to practise identifying how many more are needed to make a given number, with a focus on making number pairs to 5 and number pairs to 10. They will also explore how to build numbers up to 10 by combining smaller parts in different ways. Through hands-on activities and games, students will strengthen their understanding of number combinations and deepen their confidence in recognising how numbers can be broken apart and put back together.

What can you do at home? 

-Use everyday objects like buttons, grapes, or Lego blocks to practise breaking numbers into parts. For example, “I have 5 grapes - how many are in this bowl and how many are in my hand?”

-Play simple number games like rolling a dice and seeing how many different ways you can make that number using two or three parts.

-Ask 'how many more?' questions during play or snack time. For example, “You have 3 crackers - how many more do you need to have 5?”

-Use puzzles or stacking toys to practise combining and separating groups of items.

🌏 CBL - Diversity

Our CBL content will be thoughtfully integrated into our Mentor Text sessions this week.

🫶🏼 Respectful Relationships

This week in our Respectful Relationships learning students will reflect on their own personal and cultural strengths and celebrate what makes them unique. Together, we’ll create a Strengths Celebration Tree, where each student will add a leaf sharing a strength they are proud of. This activity encourages students to recognise and value their own abilities while appreciating the diverse strengths within our classroom community.

 💛 Wellbeing & School Wide Positive Behaviour (SWPBS)

Our SWPBS focus continues to be on the expectations of ‘Be Kind’, ‘Be Safe’, and ‘Be a Learner’. The students have been doing a wonderful job showing these positive behaviours around the school and have loved receiving tokens as recognition for their efforts. It’s been lovely to see how proud they are when they’re acknowledged for being kind friends, safe classmates, and enthusiastic learners.