Term 3 Week 4

Hello,

We hope that you had the opportunity to enjoy the sun this weekend.

Thank you for yet again supporting the Prep home learning program last week. We couldn't do it without you.

100 days of Prep

We had hoped to give you final arrangements for the celebrations for the 100 days of Prep today but the government's announcement this afternoon sounded like there will be a pupil free day this week which will impact on when the day is. (We had worked it out at the beginning of the year and it has changed many times since!) It will be towards the end of the second week of August around the 13th / 14th. One of our plans is to have a dress up day where the Preps dress as though they are 100. Some suggestions are things like wear a grey wig, braces, carry a walking stick. A sprinkling of talcum powder in hair can give the appearance of grey hair in the absence of a wig. The children will have the opportunity to share what they are wearing during a whole class Google Meet on the day. Your child might like to start having a think about what they would like to wear.

Teacher videos

We have discovered that some of the children aren't watching the teacher videos. In their hurry to get through the activities they are listening to the instructions and going straight into the activity. The videos contain the teaching points and so are best watched. The videos are also an opportunity for you to have a break from home learning even if it is only for a few minutes.

Codes

Our new codes for this week are 'er', 'ir' and 'ur'. As they all make the same sound we will be focusing on them using the Reading Tools as the Preps won't know which ones to use if they come across these words using the Spelling Tools.

Thank you to the parents who are filming their child saying the codes from time to time. It is great to see their progress. Many children have automatic recall of not only the first sound but any other sounds the code might make. This is such a great support to their reading and writing.

The children have been given the goal to each day try and say more codes than they did the day before and are being encouraged to reflect on whether that goal was achieved.

Literacy

I want to start with a big thank you to parents for taking the time to watch the video about marking your child’s writing. The consistency for students to have the same marking system at home as they have had in the classroom is invaluable to their learning. We have also loved seeing their mistakes! Many students have been editing their own writing by neatly correcting their mistakes and not rubbing/scribbling them out, this is what we love to see!

This week for literacy there will be a focus on punctuation. Children will explicitly look at different types of punctuation and understand how it helps us when we are reading and writing. When reading, punctuation supports fluency and expression and helps us to understand the text better. When writing, punctuation supports sentence structure and adds meaning to our sentences.

We will also be exploring the importance of Illustrations to support the comprehension of texts. Illustrations give us lots of clues that are often not written in the book and help give us a deeper understanding. We will be looking at books with no words and examine the power of illustrations.

We will continue consolidating the codes. As discussed in the codes section this week, we are introducing er/ir/ur.

Don’t forget each week there are three writing tasks on the choice board. We encourage students to have a go at these tasks and send a photo of their writing piece to their teacher.

Numeracy

This week for geometry we are introducing 3D objects, building on from the student’s knowledge of 2D shapes. 2D shapes are flat and 3D objects are solid and have depth. Our Preps will be learning to recognise, sort and name the most common 3D shapes along with recognising them in their environment e.g. cube- dice, rectangular prism – cereal box, cone – ice cream cone, sphere – ball, pyramid – Egyptian tomb, cylinder – can.

Our number focus this week is to count backwards and knowing the number that comes before a given number. This is often more challenging than counting forwards and knowing the number after. Developing this skill will also support student’s ability to subtract numbers which will be a focus later in the term. Please note it is common for students to stumble over moving from one group of tens to the other e.g. 20, 19 or 40, 39 until this skill has become embedded in their knowledge. With practise their counting becomes more fluent.

Unit of Inquiry

This week we are continuing to explore different types of homes around the world. We will be considering the impact climate has on home design. Each day we will be looking at a different climate and the influence it has on the features of a home. The children will be shown photos of lots of homes that are situated in the climate being explored on the day. We will be asking them to think about what features the houses have to suit where they are, how those features help and asking them to connect it back to their own home and whether or not we also have these features. The week will begin with a short video about the climates in Australia.

Well being

Stage 4 restrictions will mean that we won't be back at school this term. This is not what our Preps will be wanting to hear. We think that we may see emotional outbursts and lethargy from them. Please be mindful that we completely understand if your child is having one of those days. We would rather that the school part of the day was cut short than it became a source of stress and tension for your household.

The Prep team

0A - Kathryn Morrison

kathryn.morrison@education.vic.gov.au

0B - Deb Barden

deborah.barden@education.vic.gov.au

0C - Danielle Palombi

danielle.palombi@education.vic.gov.au

0D - Julie Daniel

julie.daniel@education.vic.gov.au

HU - Krystle Horadam

krystle.horadam@education.vic.gov.au

Prep Fortnightly Snapshot

Issue 12 · 02 Aug 2020

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