Prep 

Prep Newsletter 20.07.2023

The end of Term 2 and beginning of Term 3 has been a very exciting time for the Prep students and teachers. Of course, the highlight of this period has been moving into our brand new building. We are delighted to be making The Learning Community our new home, and have been enjoying exploring our new classrooms and other learning spaces together. 

Check out the photos below to see some of the amazing work we have been doing in our new building. At the end of last term, students explored money by identifying Australian coins and notes, as well as setting up their own shops and roleplaying selling and buying goods. 

This term, Prep students have also investigated mathematical scenarios which involve sharing, using concrete materials to represent their thinking and determining whether solutions are ‘fair’ or ‘unfair’. This week our Prep students have also been introduced to two new digraphs ‘sh’ and ‘ch’. Students have practised reading simple words and texts containing these digraphs, as well as spelling words which have these sounds. Our irregular words for this week are ‘here’ and ‘there’.

100 Days of School

By the end of this week, our Prep students will have attended 87 days of school. This means that there are only 13 days left until our ‘100 Days of School Celebration’ on Wednesday 10th August. The Prep teachers have been working very hard behind the scenes to plan for this MEGA event and we will be releasing some further information to Prep students and their families next week about some of the surprises we have in store!

Home Learning

A reminder that all Prep students must bring their black reading satchel to school with them every day. New irregular words will be added to the satchel’s keyring every week and other new reading materials, such as Pocket Rockets, decodable texts and word lists will also be sent home on a regular basis. 

Students also use their black reading satchels every day in their classrooms. For example, students may read their texts aloud to their teacher/a parent helper/reading partner, they may use their texts to search for taught irregular words or sounds, they may use their texts to discuss concepts about print (such as text features, directionality), to make predictions and inferences, or to ask and answer comprehension questions.

 Therefore, it is absolutely essential that students bring their reading satchels to school with them every day. Parents and carers, if you find that the black reading satchel keeps being forgotten at home, please speak to Mrs Willcocks and she will give your child a special reminder hangtag for their schoolbag!