Prep

Dear Prep families,

Wow! We’re more than halfway through Term Two already. The preps have had a busy week improving their writing, reading and maths knowledge. They have demonstrated that they’re open-minded, balanced and reflective learners and always willing to have a go. Keep up the great learning Preps! 

Throughout last week, the preps learnt about cyber safety and also participated in the Reconciliation walk which is an expression of support for meaningful reconciliation between Australia’s Indigenous and non-Indigenous people. 

Reconciliation Walk

Students learnt all about National Sorry Day and what the Reconciliation Walk represents. The preps walked from their classrooms to the Gym where the ceremony was held. The ceremony included Boon Warrung Elder Willie Pepper who talked about their country and what National Sorry Day meant. The preps participated in the walk while holding hands with their grade 6 buddies. The walk took place around the perimeter of the school. At Saltwater, we believe that National Sorry Day is a significant occasion to acknowledge and respect our history and is important that our students are provided every opportunity to learn about resepecting all Australians.

Cyber Safety

The preps got to learn all about cyber safety in the Wellbeing lesson where they learnt what personal information is. The aim of this lesson was to teach children that some information is ‘precious’ or ‘special’ as it applies just to them and should not be shared unless they have the permission of their parent or teacher. 

Reading

In reading, students are learning about using reading strategies to decode and make predictions. This included looking at the cover of a book and making predictions on what may happen within the book. We encourage parents to have their children make predictions before reading a book to further develop their understanding. This week the students also focused on ‘beyond the text’ and learnt that texts can tell us some information, but prior experiences and our own knowledge will allow us to think further about the text/ characters/feelings of characters. We also began to introduce the concept of procedural text where students learnt about the features of a procedural text. 

Writing

In writing, students continue to have a go at correctly writing sentences. This includes starting sentences with a capital letter, maintaining finger spaces between words and finishing sentences with the correct punctuation. Students explored the five W’s (who, what, when, where & why) in their lessons and completed a drawing and writing task describing what they did on the weekend. 

Students learnt about procedural texts in their reading lesson and revisited the topic by attempting to write their own procedural text during a task to make sock puppets. This included a title, materials, and steps involved in making the puppet. 

Maths

In Mathematics, students are continuing to explore the different ways numbers can be represented, such as numerals. Students are learning to pair numbers with numerals and write them in their workbooks. Students are also learning about ordinal numbers and how they differ from cardinal numbers. We have begun introducing statistics and probability, so students have been collecting data. They were given the opportunity to create their own yes/no question and had to ask students in their class the questions before presenting the data collected. 

Inquiry Unit of Study

This week, students are encouraged to discuss different emotions that we experience and how it might affect themselves and others. Students are also exploring different strategies that they can use to help manage these emotions whether in the playground, community or at home. 

Reminders

• Students are expected to bring their blue satchel to school EVERY DAY, along with their two take home readers and key ring words. Please make time to read each night with your child and discuss what happened in the text as this is an important part of their reading development.
• Students are expected to bring their charged iPads to school EVERY DAY, along with a pair of headphones. Headphones will assist with controlling noise levels when all students use their devices. Please ensure all of your child’s belongings are clearly labelled with their first and last names.
• Please pack a change of underwear, socks, and shorts/pants in case your child has a toileting accident. These items should be stored in your child’s bag and clearly labelled.
• Please check that your child is wearing the proper school uniform, especially closed toed shoes. It they are out of uniform for a given reason, please provide this in writing to the classroom teacher.
• Attendance continues to play an integral role in your child’s learning achievements. If your child is unwell, please ensure the reason for absence has been communicated with the school. EVERY DAY COUNTS.

Kind regards, 

The Prep teaching team.