Prep Term 4 Overviews

 Prep Term 4 Overview

To all our wonderful Prep families,

Welcome to Term 4 and back to the classroom!

Reading  

In Reading, we will continue to develop our decoding and comprehension skills through reading and responding to mentor texts. Students will identify features of non-fiction texts and use these features to deepen their understanding of what they read. They will summarise the important facts and ideas in their book. Students will infer meaning within information and story books. They will continue to share their thoughts about texts they read by identifying their favourite events, characters or new information they have learnt. Students will develop their fluency and expression by rereading sentences and changing their voice to suit what is happening in the text. Students will continue to practise and develop their decoding strategies, monitoring their reading by asking ‘does that make sense?’ and re reading the text if it does not. Continuing our phonics work, students will learn the digraphs ph and wh. They will explore the long a sound (ai, ay), the long e sound (ee, ea, and y), the long i sound (ie, igh, and y), the long o sound (oa) and the suffix -ing. Students will use this knowledge to read words that contain these spelling patterns (e.g. paint, beach, night, goat). They will continue to practise their DCC common words over the term. 

Writing

In Term 4, we will develop our ideas into detailed written texts and apply a range of strategies to spell words and edit our work. Students will begin to elaborate on who was involved and what happened during shared experiences. They will write several sentences that sequence ideas or events within the same written piece. Students will construct simple sentences. They will consider who they are writing about and what they were/are doing in each sentence. Students will check their work for 5 Star Writing. They will focus on adding capital letters to the beginning of sentences, full stops at the end of sentences and re-read their writing to ensure it makes sense. Students will continue to strive to accurately record their DCC words in their writing and use finger spaces between words. Students will refine their spelling by sounding out and checking if the word looks right. They will apply their developing phonics knowledge by writing words that contain digraphs and some long vowel sounds. Students will further develop their handwriting, ensuring their letters are formed correctly. 

Numeracy

In Numeracy, we will build our understanding of the numbers to 20 through addition, subtraction and sharing. We will explore questions such as: “If I have 8 hot wheels and I buy 4 more, how many hot wheels will I have altogether?” and “If I have 15 apples and I eat 5, how many apples will I have left?” We will strengthen our understanding of these concepts by using materials such as counters, unifix and our own drawings to help us solve worded problems. We will practise counting collections of objects using efficient organisation, collaboration and counting strategies. We will revisit and extend our knowledge of patterns to number patterns, by skip counting by 10s, 5s and 2s. We will connect the days of the week to our daily lives, and we will begin to measure time by comparing how long something takes. Using concrete and familiar materials, we will compare mass (“Is the pencil heavier or lighter than the scissors?”), capacity (“Does the cup hold more or hold less than the bowl?”), and length (“Is my pinky finger longer or shorter than my thumb?”)

Unit of Inquiry 

In our Unit of Inquiry, we will be exploring Environmental Sustainability driven by the concept ‘People have a responsibility to care for their environment.’ Students will tune into this topic by investigating different habitats and how the animals and plants that live there are interdependent. They will demonstrate this understanding by creating dioramas before reflecting on and representing their own habitat, the urban environment. They will consider their connection to the environment and the impact their actions can have through the lens of sustainability. Students will reflect on how the Bunuroung people care for Country and how they can also care for Country. Students will reflect on their ability to positively impact the environment and how sharing their knowledge with others can help nature thrive.  

Social and Emotional Learning

In Social and Emotional Learning we will build on the work we have done around emotions throughout the year as we begin to explore comfortable and uncomfortable feelings such as tired, frustrated, proud and excited. Through our Respectful Relationships program we will begin to explore the differences and similarities between boys and girls and develop the understanding that our gender doesn’t imply our interests or our favourite things. We will look at fair and friendly play and the role sharing has within this as well as how we keep our body safe. Students will work together to create common understandings of our DCC values of kindness, respect, teamwork, integrity and learning and apply these through a variety of activities throughout the term.

Discovery

This term we will continue to build oral language through Discovery Learning. This includes exploring new vocabulary and placing a deep focus on sentence structure. Students will discover through a range of play opportunities as they focus on sharing their experiences with others using correct sentence structure. Vocabulary will be selected from students' reflections to delve further into, we will explore the definition, connect with students' prior knowledge and identify what this sounds like within sentences depending on past, present or future tense.  

Goals and achievements

New goals and achievements will be updated on COMPASS in Weeks 5 and 10. Strategies you can implement at home will also be included, so that you can best support your child in their learning at both school and home. 

Kind Regards,

Prep Teachers