Prep
Dear Prep parents, welcome to week five. What an exciting time for our Prep students with the five day school week beginning next week. We look forward to working with your child/ren as they embark on full time schooling. Please ensure they get a good night's sleep as this new structure can be tirin for some.
Writing/PYP
In our Literacy sessions, the prep cohort has delved into the exploration of our Learner Attributes by engaging with mentor texts, enriching our understanding of their deeper significance. The IB Primary Years Programme (PYP), learner attributes are a set of qualities that we aim to develop in students to help them become internationally-minded learners and responsible members of their community. These attributes are integrated throughout the curriculum and are considered essential for students to acquire as they progress through their education.
Our Prep students actively participated in discussions, reflecting on ways to integrate these attributes into their daily lives. Following these discussions, students crafted sentences to exemplify each learner attribute, leading to the creation of craft pieces inspired by the texts. This process allowed students to internalise the attributes and express them creatively through their craft projects.
The Dot – Risk taker
The Good Egg – Balanced
In My Heart – Caring
The Bad Seed – Principled
The Day the Crayons Quit – Communicator
Have You Filled a Bucket Today – Open Minded
Here We Are – Knowledgeable
Confidence in writing within special writing books has soared. Students are diligently concentrating on letter formation, recognising letter sounds, initiating sentences with capital letters, maintaining spaces between words, concluding with a full stop, and complementing the sentence with a picture that matches their writing. This comprehensive approach nurtures both writing proficiency and creativity among our young learners.
Reading
Students have embraced the expectations of Independent Reading. Independent Reading is a time that is set aside daily, dedicated for independent reading where students choose books to read silently or with a partner. We encourage our students to use strategies they've learned during shared reading and guided reading sessions. Each day, they are extending their reading time to build stamina as their reading skills continue to develop and a love of reading flourishes.
Students are practising their skills in using reading strategies to tackle challenging words. Currently, they are exploring and mastering the strategies of LOOK, GET YOUR MOUTH READ, and STRETCH. These strategies equip students to decode what they are reading, fostering greater confidence and comprehension.
Mathematics
In Mathematics, students have been exploring connecting numerals to the number name and quantity, as well as counting forwards and backwards. Exploring the connection between numerals (digits) and their corresponding number names is an important foundational skill in early mathematics education. Some of our activities included the use of flashcards with numerals on one side and number names (e.g., "one," "two," "three," etc.) on the other side, where the students matched the numeral with its corresponding number name. We also used our mini whiteboards to practice writing numerals and their corresponding number names side by side. We enjoyed singing songs and rhymes that incorporate number names, such as "One, Two, Buckle My Shoe" or "Five Little Ducks." Our students were able to count along and match the number names to the corresponding numerals.
The concept of location has been a captivating theme for our prep cohort, with students enthusiastically participating in various activities to grasp directional concepts such as between, near, next to, forwards, behind, on, under, in front of, and towards. The conclusion of our location unit was marked by an engaging Bee Bots activity, which provided an exciting hands-on experience for students to apply and reinforce their understanding of direction.
Prep Wellbeing
Wellbeing has a significant impact on students' academic outcomes. Our Wellbeing lessons are well underway this term and our students have been buzzing with excitement, enthusiastically participating in a range of fun activities. Over the last few weeks, students have had the opportunity to learn how to communicate with their peers so that they can build friendships. In addition to this, they have also learnt how to use a ready to learn scale so that they can show how they are feeling. Our Prep students have had a big focus on learning how to regulate their emotions so that they can return themselves to a ‘ready to learn’ mindset. Throughout this lesson, students were able to identify when a ‘ready to learn’ plan can be used. They were successfully able to list emotional regulation strategies and design a ‘ready to learn’ plan that includes strategies that work best for them. Please check out their incredible work below. In Week 5, our Preps learnt about our school’s Flowchart and Matrix so that they could understand our school values. We are off to a fantastic start to the year.
REMINDERS:
- Students are expected to bring their satchel to school EVERY DAY.
- There is no school for the Prep students every Wednesday during February as mandated DE assessment is conducted on these days.
- Please ensure all your child’s belongings are clearly labelled with their first and last names.
- Hats are to be worn when outside from August to April. Please ensure to put sunscreen on your child before arriving at school.
- Prep students will begin using iPads in Term Two. Your child’s iPad will need to be configured by our IT team. Please look out for a notification detailing when to send iPads to school for configuration.
- Snack and lunch times are 20 minutes long. Please encourage your child to eat their snack/lunch within a 20 minute period, as this will help them to follow school routine.
- Please remember to pack a spare change of clothes for your child. Sometimes, little children can have toileting accidents and spills at school.
Kind regards,
the Prep Team.