Prep

Dear Prep families,

Welcome to Term 4, Week 8. Our Preps continue to amaze us as they have shown to be flexible learners during Week 7 as teachers conducted transition sessions with the 2024 Prep students. Our Prep grades partnered with another class to visualise and create either a Rangoli or lantern to celebrate the Festival of Lights in response to the text 'Binny's Diwali'. Our knowledgable students shared their understandings to discuss the Hindu celebration of Diwali, which was a joy to hear!

Reading

In Reading, students have continued their exploration of narrative texts to think about the purpose and respond in a variety of ways. Preps practised retelling texts to include each element of a narrative. They enjoyed visualising as their teacher read a page without showing the illustrations, allowing students to listen to the author's words and paint a picture in their minds. Great discussions were had as we read for meaning to support their understanding of histories, making connections through the lens of our ongoing Inquiry Unit, 'Where We Are In Place and Time'. Students continue to build their comprehension as they answered literal questions using evidence within the text, and inferential questions by bringing their prior knowledge to the topic and interpreting text clues.

Writing

In Writing, our Preps have continued to apply their understanding of narratives by being author's of their own texts. In addition to writing their own complete sentences, they have also been introduced to the engaging app 'Scratch Junior'. Students have seen their own narratives come to life as they selected settings and characters to then create a code with coding blocks so that their story elements could be animated. They explored the various tools to draw, scribble, use the 'start on bump' block, record their voices, add scenes and code their stories to run over multiple pages. So much fun and learning was had by all!

Mathematics

In Mathematics, students continued to use subtraction to gain a better understanding of problem solving. Students practised using number lines by counting back, found the difference between two numbers and recognised when sums have the same value by applying their knowledge of addition. Students continued to collaborate with peers during our LED lessons (Launch/Explore/Discuss), to self select strategies, problem solve and discuss their mathematical challenges and successes.

As we are coming to end of the unit, they participated in demonstrating their understandings of subtraction through the Essential Assessment platform. Preps explicitly learnt about sharing so that they can divide equally. They explored sharing a variety of quantities and learnt that when dividing between two groups, they are 'halving'.

They used classroom resources to share equally and recorded their accomplishments in their books.

Christmas Carols

Students continue to enjoy rehearsing their Christmas Carol lyrics through song and dance. They are extremely excited about the end of year Christmas Carol celebration. Feel free to enjoy practising the lyrics and movements with your child/ren at home and we look forward to seeing you on the night!

No Hat, No Play 

We would like to remind families of the importance of wearing a sun-smart hat during outdoor play. It is the policy of the school that all students wear hats for the first and last terms of the school year when participating in outdoor activities. Please ensure that hats are clearly labelled with the student's full name, as they can easily be misplaced. School hats can be purchased at the main office. 

Reminders

• Students are required to bring a hat to school everyday.
• Please ensure students are bringing fully charged iPads with headphones to school daily.
• We encourage students to practise learning the lyrics for their class's Christmas Carol at home. 
• Students are required to be in their academic uniform, unless they have PE  on which days they are permitted to wear their sports attire. Additionally, Fridays are designated as Sport Uniform Days. Students with long hair must have their hair tied back in a ponytail. Visible jewellery, nail polish, or makeup is not permitted.

   Kind regards, 

   The Prep Team.