Prep Wonga Weekly
Week 4, Term 1
INFORMATION
🗓️ Upcoming Dates:
Wednesday 12th Feb: Assessment #3 - only students who have signed up for their assessment session need to attend school (see timetable below)
Monday 24th Feb - the NED show @ 2:30
Tuesday 4th March: Prep Information Session (time TBC)
Thursday 20th March: Colour Run
The NED Show (Mon 24th February)
The NED Show is a character education program that centres around three important messages that have life long relevance:
During the assembly, students will learn about NED’s three messages while also enjoying storytelling, magic, humour and yo-yo tricks.
Please click on the link for further information.
http://www.thenedshow.com/parents.html
Volunteer Child Safe Training - Term 1 Sessions
Dear Parents and Carers,
We greatly appreciate the valuable contributions of our volunteers in supporting our school community. As part of our commitment to child safety, all volunteers must complete annual Child Safe Training before working with students. This requirement applies to all volunteers, including those assisting in programs such as:
· Afterschool Basketball (coaching/team management)
· Art room support
· School events (e.g., Cross Country, Athletics, excursions)
· Other classroom or extracurricular activities
If you are considering volunteering in any capacity, please ensure your training is up to date. If you are unsure of your current training status, please check with the staff member who has invited you to support the program or event.
Additionally, if you volunteer at another Department of Education school, please note that training must also be completed at the school where you volunteer.
Term 1 Volunteer Child Safe Training Sessions
All sessions will be conducted online via Webex. Dates and links can also be found on the Sentral Parent Calendar. Please note these sessions are not recorded, they are presented as live sessions.
· Week 3: Monday, 10th February | 5:00 - 5:30 PM (online)
https://eduvic.webex.com/eduvic/j.php?MTID=mc98d597cd5ff86d4b4512100c76f56f4
· Week 4: Thursday, 20th February | 5:00 - 5:30 PM (online)
https://eduvic.webex.com/eduvic/j.php?MTID=mdfc340ad6a5c5223dec571f6976e1fee
· Week 6: Thursday, 6th March | 5:00 - 5:30 PM (online)
https://eduvic.webex.com/eduvic/j.php?MTID=mef3a2152e87f811c709212cd25375ce6
· Week 9: Monday, 25th March | 5:00 - 5:30 PM (online)
https://eduvic.webex.com/eduvic/j.php?MTID=m338c73b0471873f39d56a73e6c91506f
We encourage all new volunteers or volunteers needed to update their training to attend one of these sessions to ensure compliance and to continue making a positive impact in our school community.
Thank you for your support in keeping our students safe.
Kind regards,
Adele Brice
on behalf of the WPPS Team
👩🏻💻 iPads reminder
We will start using iPads at the beginning of Term 2 - 22nd April. We will provide you with all the essential steps to take before iPads are brought to school, which will be communicated soon.
Before entering the classroom...
Food: Our first food break is at 10am, so please make sure that your child eats a good breakfast in the morning.
Toilet: Please encourage your child to go to the toilet when they arrive at school.
🎨 Specialist timetable
Each week, Prep students have lessons in Visual Art, Performing Arts, P.E, Sensory Gym and Auslan. They will also visit the library with their classroom teacher. For your reference, we’ve attached the specialist timetable for each class.
*This timetable is current as of this week, but it can be subject to change.
**We will add Library to the timetable soon!
Wednesday - Assessment day
Preps have the first five Wednesdays at home, so that teachers can complete literacy and numeracy assessments with each child.
We have attached the schedule for each class below, for your reference.
CURRICULUM
📚 Phonemic awareness: reading and phonics
We are starting our UFLI lessons this week! We are starting with the letters A (short A, as in 'apple') and M.
We will explain UFLI in detail at our upcoming Information Session.
What can you do at home?
-Read bedtime stories to your child
-Revise the letters A and M by writing them (in lower case writing) and talking about the sounds they make.
📝 Literature: reading responses and writing
The mentor texts will be Tomorrow is a Brand New Day by Davina Bell and Try your Best and Forget the Rest by Heath McKenzie. These books have been carefully selected to reflect our CBL Guiding Questions. These books emphasise the importance of persistence, trying your best, learning from mistakes and looking at ways to solve challenges, not matter how big or small. Students will take part in class discussions, complete personal reflections and explore the concept of 'problem and solution'.
Students will continue to strengthen their fine motor skills for writing by engaging in activities like playdough, tracing, and cutting, which help build hand muscle strength. They will continue to develop a functional pencil grip (see pictures below) and focus on improving pencil control to create the essential lines for letter formation, including vertical, horizontal, and curved lines.
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, using the guides below. Bonus ... ask your child if they remember how to sing the 'Pencil Grip' song!
🔢 Maths
Students will continue to work on counting principles of ordering numbers, and revising the language of ordering and counting forward using words like 'forwards, bigger, higher, more'. We will build on this understanding by introducing the concept of 'more/after' and 'before/less'. Students will use tools like number lines, pictures, counters and dominoes to assist with understanding.
What can you do at home?
-Read numbers in your environment
-Play dice games that involve counting spaces and moving forwards
-Count collections with 1-1 counting
-Write numbers using taught formations
🌏 CBL - Connections
This week, we are exploring some of our Guiding Questions through our Mentor Text discussions and tasks (see above in literature).
We are also developing our understanding of Connections through our Wellbeing programs of Friendology and Respectful Relationships - read on below to find out more!
💛 Wellbeing
In Friendology, students are completing Session 1 called 'Inner Ninja'. This session is focused on self-compassion, teaching students ways to treat themselves like a best friend.
In our Respectful Relationships lessons, students will develop their emotional literacy by recognising and identifying their emotions and the emotions of others. They will identify what emotions look and sound like, and describe situations that may evoke these emotions.
What can you do at home?
-Have discussions about emotions eg. what does it look and sound like if someone is happy? Angry? Needs a friend?