Achilles Community Report

Welcome to Aitken Hill Primary School and our first term of the year!

We are so happy with the way your child has settled into the routine of school. In addition to introducing early Reading, Writing and Maths activities in class, we have also taken your child on a school tour to assist them in becoming familiar with their new environment, and learn where facilities such as the Library and the office are located.

Lunchboxes

Brain Food is fruit or vegetable snacks that children may eat in class. Ideally the fruit or vegetable snacks should be bite size and easy to eat, to enable your child to continue with their work, for example cut up apple, strawberries, carrot etc. Please send Brain Food in a small, separate container with your child’s name on it. To minimise litter in the schoolyard we would like all children to have their morning tea and lunch in containers. It is also important to remember to make your child’s lunch as healthy as possible – please limit treats to one per day! A healthy lunch box will give your child the energy they need to concentrate throughout the long school day. We would love to see food such as cheese, yoghurt, sandwiches, fruit and vegetables in your child’s lunchbox every day.

Reading

During this term students listened to and read many different types of texts in order to explore their structures and patterns. The students investigated the purpose of a range of literary and nonliterary texts.​​ This is an exciting time for your child. Learning to read and write are life skills that will help them succeed in all aspects of their education and beyond. Students begin to read by looking at the pictures and ‘telling the story’. Next, they use their knowledge of letter sounds and the pictures to ‘read’ the words. They rely heavily on repeated patterns in the texts. Later they develop skills in sounding out words or recognising common high frequency words. 

We have also started our phonics program and have been learning rhythm and rhyme, alliteration, voice sounds and oral blending and segmenting. These activities will help develop speaking and listening skills and tune into the sounds in words. Later this term we will focus on the letters and sounds: S, A, T, P, I, N, M, D, G, O, C, K, CK, E, U, R, H, B, F and L. 

Writing

In Writing, students will be learning how to hold a pencil correctly, recognise and write letters, basic punctuation and begin formulating written words into sentences. In the first few weeks of this term the students are investigating letters and particularly the letters in their names so they can recognise and be able to write their names. Preps are also looking at strengthening their hand muscles and fine-motor skills through exploring different activities like threading beads, pasta, painting with cotton tips, doing up buttons and zips and using tweezers. Students are getting more confident at using scissors and growing their hand muscles as we explore more activities each week.

We are also learning how to use the correct pencil grip when holding a pencil, using scissors safely and using a glue stick. 

We also worked on learning the letters of our name and being able to recognise and write our name using Victorian Cursive Handwriting. 

Maths

Over the term, students will be participating in a variety of activities such as hands on, open-ended and authentic learning situations that allow them to learn and develop their Maths skills. They will be learning Numbers 0-9 and how to write them, recognise them and make models using these numbers. They will be sorting, describing and naming 2D shapes. They will finally be encouraged to recognise basic shapes and distinguish between them. 

SEL (Social and Emotional Learning)

Buddies

To build relationships and develop new social skills, we had a Buddy meeting in Week Two. Your child had the opportunity to pair with a member of the 5-6 students. They spent their lunch together to build social relationships and we will encourage and arrange a new meeting in the near future.

Reminders

• From September through to the end of April, all students must wear a Sunsmart hat when they are outside. 
• Please label all food containers, lunch boxes, drink bottles, hats and jumpers. If items are lost and they have your child’s name on them they will be quickly returned to you. 
• The Blue ‘Take Home Reader Bag’ is to put the students' ‘Take Home Books’ into. Please ensure the ‘Take Home Reader Bag’ comes to school every Wednesday and Friday. Students will change their books on these days and teachers will sign their reading journal.
• If your child has a contagious illness or is unwell, please ensure they are kept at home to recuperate. When they are well enough to attend school again please update their absence on Compass or phone the school to advise the school of the reason for their absence. Please be considerate of current events and cooperate with the school guidelines. 
• Please remember to pack a spare change of clothes in your child’s school bag in case of any tear in their clothing.