Dear Prep Families,

Term 3 is well and truly underway! Our prep students have been working so hard to engage in all new learning and are now busier than ever. We have been so impressed to see the amazing effort all of our students have been putting into their work and the progress they are making each and every week!

English:

Our InitiaLit program has continued with daily revision of all our known letters and the sounds they make. We have also started introducing digraphs into our literacy learning. We have been focusing on ‘ll’ says /l/, ‘ss’ says /s/, ‘ff’ says /f/ and ‘ee’ says /ē/. We have also started expanding into looking at digraphs that contain two different letters such as ‘sh’ says /sh/, ‘qu’ says /kw/.

You can help to support your child at home by asking them to share what a digraph is and the sounds that our new digraphs make. Here are visual prompts for our new digraphs:

At home, if you wish to practise the sounds letters make with your child, please click here.

We have continued to incorporate daily reading and writing activities into our lessons. We provide meaningful opportunities to practise reading and building words using the sounds they have learnt. Please see a list of examples below:

We have also continued to learn even more tricky words! These words are words that cannot be sounded out using the sounds we have learnt. We have been focusing on quite a few new tricky words over the past couple of weeks. These words are:

To support your child’s progress at home, you can ask them to read and spell each tricky word. They can even have a go at using them in their own sentences!

If you wish to practise our tricky words with your child, please click here.

We have also kept up with reviewing the vowels ‘a’, ‘e’, ‘i’, ‘o’ and have introduced the last vowel ‘u’.

See if your child can name all of the vowel letters and the sounds they make!

Story Book:

We have been looking at a new story over these past couple of weeks! We are now reading ‘A Nice Walk in the Jungle’ written by Nan Bodsworth. Our focus words from this text are ‘lumpy’, ‘enormous’ and ‘tender’.

In our story book lessons, we make predictions about the story based on the front cover, title and the pictures that we see throughout the text. We also listen to the story and engage in retelling the events through identifying the beginning, middle and end.

We are then given the chance to have meaningful discussions about the story by making connections between the text and our own lives.

To support your child’s vocabulary development, you can use these words in sentences at home or have a bit more fun with it by playing charades or going on a word hunt to find these words in other picture books.

Writing:

In Writing, we have been continuing to focus on starting every sentence with a capital letter and ending them with a full stop. We have also started practising writing next to the margin and the return sweep. This is when we continue our writing underneath on the next line when we run out of room on our current line.

You can support your child’s learning at home by asking them:

‘What do we need at the start of a sentence?’ and ‘Where do we need to use a capital letter?’

‘What do we need at the end of a sentence?’ and ‘Where do we need to use a full stop?’

You can also support your child by writing some sentences at home starting next to the margin.

Some sentences to practise could be:

There was a pink hat on the bench.
He can jump on top of the log.
The man was stuck on the gate.

Maths:

In Maths, we have moved onto learning a new mathematical skill! We have been learning to make and say two-digit numbers. We have done this by using our place value charts to help us understand the difference between tens and ones in two-digit numbers and how these can be represented using bundling sticks.

This involves us counting by tens and then counting on by ones to identify the two-digit number shown on our chart. E.g., “10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80… 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86.”

We have also expanded our skills by accurately writing any given two-digit number with the support of our place value chart and bundling sticks.

This involves us saying how many groups of ten and how many ones we see and identifying the corresponding numbers to then correctly write the given two-digit number.

See if your child can identify and write these two-digit numbers:

Additionally, we have also been continuing our exploration into Geometry through rotating and turning shapes. This has included us identifying that when we turn any shape, the shape has to stay in the same spot and understand that, sometimes, we have to rotate shapes to fit into certain areas/holes. We have also experimented with shape rotation by creating our own shape pictures!

Geography:

In Geography, we have been learning how maps are important in our everyday lives and how to use them to find our way around. We got to have some fun by practicing our map reading skills by following a map of Tarneit Rise to go on an animal hunt around the school!

We have also started our journey around the world by looking at our first continent - North America! We had a look at the different countries located in North America, the many special animals that live there and how this continent is different to other continents.

With our new knowledge, we have started to create our own passports to show what we know about North America. We are now on our way to our next destination - South America!

If you would like to join in on your child’s learning about the seven continents, you can sing this song together here!

100 Days of School:

Our amazing prep students marked a major milestone by celebrating their 100th day of school! This is such a huge achievement for all of our wonderful prep students. The day was packed with engaging and enjoyable activities, reflecting the joy and progress all of our students have made so far. It was a wonderful day showcasing the fantastic spirit of our young learners. We are all looking forward to what the rest of the year has to bring!

Reminders / Upcoming Events:

Take Home Reading:

At Tarneit Rise, we encourage reading every night. Each child has an assigned day to change their reading books. Please bring their reading satchel on this day so classroom teachers can check reading journals and assist your child in getting new books.

📚 Book Week is Coming! 🎉

Get ready to celebrate stories, imagination, and the joy of reading! Book Week is just around the corner, and we have an exciting lineup of activities planned — from dress-up days to book-themed games, school scavenger hunts, and a chance to show off your favourite books. Don’t forget to bring your love of reading and your best costume for our Dress Up Day!

Let’s dive into the magical world of books together! 📖✨

When: Week 5, Dress Up Day - Friday 22nd August

Theme: Book an Adventure

We are also having a Book Fair throughout this special week.

Children will be visiting the Book Fair in Room 6 during Week 5.

Books will be able to be purchased from the Book Fair before school from 8:15am - 8:40am and after school from 3:10pm - 3:45pm.

Werribee Zoo Excursion:

In Week 5, the Preps will go on their first excursion to Werribee Zoo. This will be a fantastic opportunity for students to extend their learning about animals and their habitats.

Students will need to be in full school uniform with a clearly labelled jacket or coat. They will also need:

Suitable walking shoes
Easy to eat snack/lunch in a small, lightweight bag (name should be labelled)
Refillable drink bottle

We can’t wait to see what our prep students achieve and get up to over the next couple of weeks!

Kind Regards,

PLC Prep

Big Childcare