Prep Team News
with Caitlin & Georgia
Hello Prep families,
We hope you all were able to relax over the long weekend and are staying out of the sometimes dreary weather. It has been a busy two weeks in Prep, filled with learning some new letters, practising our addition and subtraction, and conducting some fun (and delicious) Inquiry experiments! Winter is well and truly upon us, so a gentle reminder to please pack a jumper for your child and keep them home if they are unwell.
Fire Ed Incursion
Over the past two weeks we have been lucky enough to have two visits from firefighters at Newport Fire Station. These sessions helped our students to understand more about home fire safety. We discussed the difference between safe and unsafe fires and the students were able to see a firefighter dressed in the outfit they wear when they show up to fires. During the second session, Preps were treated to a tour of the fire truck and equipment and even had a turn using the fire hose! Thanks to the firefighters from Newport Fire Station for a wonderful incursion.
Curriculum Focus: Weeks 7 - 8
Reading - Students will continue learning about appropriate reading behaviours, including pointing to the words as we read. They will also discuss text features such as full stops and capital letters. As part of our Little Learner’s program, students begin the year learning single letter sounds, with our current focus being the /qu/and /z/ sounds. To help us remember these sounds, we have met Queenie the quail and Zoe the zebra. There are songs about these characters available online, which you may like to listen to with your child at home or in the car:
Writing - Students are learning to correctly form letters and use our sound knowledge to write sentences. This week we are focusing on forming the letters ‘qu’ and ‘z’. We are also learning to read and write the heart words ‘she’, ‘he’, ‘we’, ‘to’, ‘do’ and ‘was’ this term.
Numeracy - Students are exploring addition and subtraction. We are using hands-on materials to solve problems, write these as a number sentence and apply them to problem solving activities.
Inquiry - This term, our inquiry topic is ‘What is changing around us?’ Continuing to build from the Wicked Weather incursion, we have begun conducting some experiments in the classroom and thinking about how other changes occur.
Homework - Each Monday, students will be given an activity to complete at home that relates to our weekly sound or maths focus. The activity in their ‘Home Learning Book’ will be collected each Friday. Homework in Prep should take no longer than 15 minutes.
Have a great weekend.
Warm regards,
The Prep Team–Caitlin Sullivan (Prep S), & Georgia Grainger (Prep G)