Reading

We have had a wonderful week of reading and phonics learning in Prep!

Looking Back at Week 8

Last week, during Week 8, students revised the sounds ch, v, x and y and were introduced to the digraph wh, which makes the /w/ sound as in whip, when and wheel. Students also continued building their confidence with Tricky Words, practising how to recognise these words quickly and use them in sentences.

During Week 8, students worked on:

revising the sounds ch, v, x and y
learning that wh can represent the /w/ sound
reading and spelling words containing these sounds
practising blending and segmenting sounds
developing reading fluency
identifying and reading Tricky Words
writing words and sentences using their developing phonics knowledge.

We used a range of hands-on activities, games, word building and reading experiences to reinforce these skills.

This Week We Are Learning ‘th’

This week, students will learn to hear, read and write the /th/ sound in words such as: thumb • thin • thick • thud • moth • with

We will practise:

hearing the /th/ sound at the beginning and end of words
recognising that t and h work together to make the th digraph
blending sounds to read words
breaking words into their individual sounds
spelling th words using sound boxes
reading words and sentences with increasing fluency
writing words and sentences using our developing phonics knowledge.

We will also revisit wh from last week and practise listening carefully to identify and distinguish between the different sounds.

Tricky Words

Our Tricky Words are words that we need to learn by sight so that we can recognise them quickly and automatically when reading. This week, students will continue revising familiar Tricky Words and will be introduced to: what • where

We will practise reading these words in sentences, identifying them in texts and using them in our own writing.

Supporting Reading at Home

Our Prep students are continuing to develop their confidence as readers and writers. We are encouraging them to have a go, use their sounds, practise their Tricky Words and keep trying when something feels tricky. At home, you can support your child by reading together regularly and looking for wh and th words in books, signs and everyday writing.

You can also practise reading the Tricky Words what and where and encourage your child to use them in a sentence. Thank you for supporting your child's learning at home. Every little bit of reading, talking and practising helps!

Writing

This week, we completed our Term 3 Learning Task, which was a Warm Write. We looked closely at an image and worked together to brainstorm the who, what doing and where, creating a helpful word bank for students to refer to as they wrote. Students were then given the sentence stem, “There is a…”, and encouraged to complete the sentence and continue writing beyond just one sentence. While we placed a small amount of emphasis on students’ ability to spell CVC and CVCC words, the main focus of the task was on letter formation and correctly positioning letters using our sky, grass and dirt lines. The students all did a fantastic job and should be very proud of their efforts!

We have also been busy practising putting into written form some of the new digraphs we have learnt, including th. We have noticed that th can be a tricky sound for some students to articulate, with some initially producing a /f/ sound instead. We have been practising listening carefully to the difference between these sounds and using our mouths and tongues correctly to produce th. With plenty of practice and opportunities to apply this sound in words, I am sure our students will have it mastered in no time!

We are continuing to develop our sentence-writing skills through picture labelling and the use of Colourful Semantics. Students are using images to identify and generate key vocabulary before organising their ideas into a sentence. They are then encouraged to use this oral sentence as a scaffold before having a go at writing it independently. This is helping our students to build their confidence in generating ideas, constructing sentences and transferring their spoken language into written form.

Maths

Over the past fortnight in Maths, students have been busy exploring sharing, equal groups and early division concepts through a range of hands-on learning experiences.

Our Prep students have used manipulatives and everyday materials to explore what it means to share equally. They have investigated equal shares by sharing collections between two and three groups, making groups of two and three, and identifying amounts that can be shared equally. Students have also explored what happens when a collection cannot be shared equally, including situations where there is one left over.

A key focus has been developing students’ mathematical reasoning. Students have been encouraged to look closely at groups, decide whether they are equal, and identify what needs to be added, removed or changed to make the groups equal. They have also applied their understanding to simple sharing problems, using concrete materials to test their ideas and explain their thinking.

Through these practical experiences, students are building an important foundation for division while developing their confidence in sharing fairly, recognising equal groups and solving problems.

SEL and other

This week in our Integrated unit of Geography, we explored the important relationship between characters and their settings and discussed how the setting can help bring a story to life. We played a fun game of Settings Memory, where students had to match characters with the setting that belonged to them, such as a little pig with a house of straw, a clown with a circus tent, or the Gruffalo with the deep, dark woods.

We then connected this learning to our own lives by talking about our houses, our addresses and some of the features that make our homes special and unique. Students were given their own addresses and carefully copied them as though they were sending themselves something in the post. They then drew a picture of their house to accompany it. It was wonderful to see the level of detail and thought students put into their drawings, particularly the special features of their homes that were most important to them.

In Respectful Relationships, we continued exploring the idea that everyone is different, including our likes, dislikes and the things we enjoy. We talked about gender norms and stereotypes and discussed how we should never feel that we have to like or do something simply because it is traditionally associated with boys or girls. We also explored how having different interests and opinions from our friends does not mean that we cannot get along, and that it is perfectly okay for people to like different things. We also participated in our school's RU OK? Day, where we learnt how to check in with our friends, classmates and schoolmates and practised questions we can ask to find out how someone is feeling.

We discussed what we can do if someone is not okay and identified trusted adults we can go to for help and support. Some fun colouring activities helped us to consolidate and reinforce our learning in a creative way.

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