Junior School

PREP AA

Hello families! 

I hope you have all been well, we have developed so much in such little time in the Prep AA room, this term we have been reflecting on all of our progress, especially when it comes to trusting our own brains and building confidence in our capabilities.  

READING AND WRITING: 

We have continued to explore letter sounds and digraphs, introducing three new digraphs each week and spotting these sounds in text and in our readers. We have been exploring procedural texts and learning how to write about an activity we are doing, brushing our teeth or making a jam sandwich etc. I have seen such a development in confidence when writing on our lines, using the lower-case letters throughout and experimenting with capital letters and full stops. 

We have been progressing with reading strategies and continue to blend and segment words to help us figure out what they are.  We have been working on rhyming words and noticing patterns in the books we are reading. 

NUMERACY: 

In numeracy we are focusing on the following, 

2D and 3D shapes, identifying the sides and corners of these shapes and making them with tactile materials. (Popsicle sticks and playdough) 

Introduction to measurement, using words to describe the shape, length and how much an object can hold. We have been investigating measurement through tracing each other's hands and ordering them from smallest to largest. We used unifix cubes to see how long our hands are and compared them to our peers.  Finally, we used our drink bottles to see how much water they can hold and compared the size by using new words like length and width. 

Counting strategies, Real life addition/ simple addition equations and we are moving into partitioning small numbers, 1 and 4 more make 5, and 3 and 2 can also make 5. Before we move to bigger numbers! 

HUMANITIES: 

In Humanities, we have been revisiting self-regulation strategies, looking at our zones of regulation and how in our classroom we can settle ourselves to calm again and be ready to learn. Every day we have been using the first 2-3 minutes of the lesson to have an emotion check in to think about our feelings throughout the day and better regulate before we become overwhelmed. 

In Geography we have been learning all about the country we are from, what is in our community and where we frequently visit. This week we have been diving further into Australia and the different kind of weather we experience in different states of Australia. The children have enjoyed learning a welcome to country and it starts our day off on a positive note, feeling settled and ready to learn. 

SPECIAL EVENTS: 

Buddy program: This fortnight we have enjoyed seeing our buddies and learning more about them. In this session, we enjoyed having the challenge of drawing our buddies and ensuring we had all the correct features, the preps loved this challenge and really loved learning more about their year six peers. In term three, we will continue facilitating strong and healthy social skills throughout our lessons in buddies. 

This week, we have had the pleasure of beginning our step into prep program. We have been working on building strong bonds with our wider community, I asked the year five students to come to our local Early Childhood Service to engage with the kindergarten children. We had a fantastic time learning more about our community and talking to the children about "big school". 

Cannot believe we only have two weeks left of school! Thank you all for a fantastic term so far. 

-Miss A and Jacqui

1/2 PB and NP. 

We are quickly approaching the end of term but we are still working hard!

In reading, we looked at Indigenous Dreamtimes and fables during Reconciliation Week. Students were able to identify what lesson the story was teaching us. We have also been looking at making inferences by using clues that are found in images and texts. 

In writing, we have been continuing with narrative writing. Students have been working hard to start their story with a sizzling start to capture the attention of their audience. They have also been using lots of descriptive words to make their story more exciting.

In math's, we did lots of activities around measurement using informal units. We measured the perimeter and area of the basketball court using our bodies which was super exciting. We have now moved into looking at money and money transactions.

All the best from the team,

Nicole, Phoebe, Jeanette, Carol, Jacqui and Shannon