Grade Prep,1 & 2

Wonderful Preps

Congratulations to our wonderful Foundation students who have settled in so well and made a fantastic start to their school journey. 

In term one, we have been learning about Living Things. We have enjoyed planting living and non living things to see what will grow! In one of the photos below, you can see Ms S in her element showing us how to plant a strawberry plant. Buchanan told us that plants get their nutrients from the soil! We have also enjoyed spending some of our eating time together in the Green Nest. The Preps love our school chickens!

In Prep classrooms, we spend time developing crucial fine motor skills. These skills involve the small muscles in the hands and fingers and are essential for tasks like writing and using scissors. Activities such as building with LEGO, playing with playdough, holding a school chook and other hands-on activities greatly support the development of fine motor skills. 

We all enjoyed going to Jets Gymnastics and trying out lots of different equipment and activities!

Looking forward to another great term

-Carly, Bec, Cara, Gill, Lily & Jay

Amazing Grade One's

Dear Grade One Families,

We’ve had a wonderful term of learning, growth, and fun in Grade One! The students have been working hard to develop their reading, writing, and maths skills, and it’s been fantastic to see their confidence grow.

This term, we’ve explored engaging stories, strengthened our phonics knowledge, and tackled problem-solving in maths. We encourage you to continue fostering a love of learning at home by reading together, practicing number skills, and celebrating your child’s efforts.

Thank you for your ongoing support—we value the partnership between home and school in making this a great year for our students. We look forward to another exciting term ahead!

- From the Grade One Team (Jemma, Keegan, Naomi, Lincoln, Arnika & Billie)

⭐ PE & Healthy Bodies Days – Please ensure your child wears comfortable uniform and suitable shoes for movement.

📚 Library & Home Reading – Don’t forget to pack your child’s library bag and home reader journal along with their decodable readers each week.

🧢 Hats & Drink Bottles – A wide-brimmed hat is essential for outdoor play, and a water bottle helps keep students hydrated throughout the day.

🥗 Healthy Lunchboxes – We encourage nutritious snacks and lunches to fuel growing minds. Please remember that lollies are not allowed at school.

🚫 Toys at School – To avoid distractions and lost items, we ask that toys stay at home.

🌰 Allergy Awareness – We have a student with a severe peanut allergy (anaphylaxis) in Grade One. To help keep everyone safe, please avoid sending any peanut products in your child’s lunchbox.

Thank you for your support in helping our Grade One students have a smooth and successful term!

Our Fun Week at Jets Gym!

This week, we had an amazing time at Jets Gym! We jumped, balanced, rolled, and climbed as we learned new gymnastics skills. The coaches were so friendly and helped us practice tricks like forward rolls, hanging on the bars, and bouncing on the trampoline.

We also worked on our strength, balance, and coordination while having so much fun! Everyone tried their best, cheered for their friends, and showed great teamwork.

What a fantastic week of learning and moving! We can't wait to do it again! 🤸‍♂️✨

In week 8, we celebrated Harmony Day, a special occasion to recognise and appreciate the diversity in our community. The students looked fantastic dressed in orange, the colour that represents inclusivity, respect, and a sense of belonging for all.

To mark the day, we engaged in craft activities that encouraged discussions about kindness, friendship, and the beauty of our diverse backgrounds. It was wonderful to see the students working together and sharing their thoughts on what harmony means to them.

Thank you for your support in making this a meaningful and memorable day!

 Awesome Grade Two's

Wow! What an amazing start to the year in Grade 2. We have welcomed new students, learnt new routines, met new teachers and settled beautifully into our year. Here is a snapshot of our learning during Term 1: 

Literacy

In literacy, we have read a variety of picture story books, focusing on a new one each week. We read many fictional stories such as Under the Southern Cross, Willy the Wimp, Pete the Sheep, The Day the Crayons Came Home and many more. The students have enjoyed planning, creating and editing a range of stories using the themes from each week's text. We have been working on paragraphs, full stops and capital letters, Grade 2's sure have a fabulous imagination! Some activities include: a postcard written from the perspective of a lost crayon, the continuation of stories using their own ideas and student council applications.

During our phonics sessions we have covered many sounds including /oy/, /ar/, /air/ and /oo/. We enjoy exploring these sounds through our daily Sounds Write practise. We have also incorporated these sounds in our writing by sounding out words we are unsure of when spelling.

Reminders:

• Library is every Thursday. Make sure to bring a library bag and return previously borrowed books.
• Diaries and home readers are collected every Friday. If you forget to bring it in on Friday, you can still return them throughout the week. 

Numeracy

In numeracy we have commenced our daily fluency program, focusing on skip counting by 2s, 3s, 5s and 10s, number facts, doubling and halving numbers as well as calendar and ordinal numbers. We have done lots of work around using number lines, ordering numbers up to 1000 and building numbers using different materials. 

Our students have also enjoyed many hands-on activities, focusing on different types of measurement such as length, capacity and mass. During these activities we focused on using correct language such as heavier than, lighter than, more, less, how many, shorter and longer. We have also looked at the difference between using formal and informal measurements and the importance of accuracy when measuring. Some activities included building a beach so we could determine the capacity of various sized cups, we measured the length of our classroom using unifix blocks and students, but the most fun was our water relay race!

Inquiry

Our Inquiry topic in Term 1 was Geography with a focus on Australia and it's place in the world. Our students learnt how many continents there are and their names, oceans found on our planet focusing on Australia's surrounding oceans, all about the equator, north and south poles, as well as some key landmarks within our country. We also learnt about addressses and how they are when sending mail.

Technology

Our students are lucky enough to have their very own laptops to use for the year! We have been busy practicing how to log in independently, developing our typing skills and accessing different programs such as Google Classroom, Epic Reading and the student's favourite 'Dojo Island'. Something new that we have introduced into Grade 2 are the 'Laptop Licences'. To earn these, the students need to show the teachers various skills such as logging into different programs, changing the volume and 

Our main focus this term was learning how to stay safe online so that we can use them effectively in our learning and at home. A great website for parents to contiue the e-saftey discussion is https://www.esafety.gov.au/parents or if you just would like some information.

Fun Stuff

We have had lots of great experiences in Term 1, including our yearly gym program, "Fun Friday" where we practise skills such as getting along, communication, taking turns and listening.  A few more things to look forward to before the end of term: spending some quality time with our special people on our Grandparents afternoon, our excursion to watch "Josephine wants to Dance" at the Ulumbarra Theatre and the finals of Epsom Primary School's first ever Gaga tournament!

A big congratulations to our Grade 2 student councillors:

• Mason Semmens (2J)
• Finn Welton (2AD)

Thanks for your ongoing support,

- Anne, Callum, Kaiden and Par