Prep Team News

Hello Prep families,

We cannot believe there is now only three weeks of school left to go for the year. It has been a busy few weeks in Prep with the Willy Games, the start of our swimming program this Thursday and our assembly performance on Friday.

While it is a busy and exciting time of year, it can also be a very tiring time for our newest Willy Kids, as they complete their first year of school. You may notice that your child appears more emotional and sensitive as we near the end of the year. This may become even more evident as we begin our swimming program. Maintaining routines, including a bedtime routine and daily reading, along with some downtime for your child can be beneficial during this time. 

Our Willy Kid theme this fortnight is ‘Willy Kids are Leaders’. We read ‘The Day the Crayons Quit’ by Drew Daywait, and discussed how Willy Kids can demonstrate their leadership skills at school. 

Prep Assembly Performance - This Friday 29th November

This Friday, the Preps will be performing ‘Under the Sea’  at our whole school assembly, to celebrate our Inquiry topic for this term. The assembly will commence at 2:30pm, should you wish to attend. We are looking forward to having many guests there. Get ready to sing along! 

Curriculum Focus: Weeks 7 - 8

Reading - Students will continue learning about appropriate reading behaviours, including pointing to the words as we read and taking a breath at full stops. They will also discuss text features such as full stops, capital letters, exclamation marks and question marks. As part of our Little Learner’s program, students are continuing to explore digraphs and trigraphs, with our current focus being the long i sound (represented by ‘igh’, ‘y’ and ‘ie’). 

Writing - Students are continuing to develop their letter formation and sound knowledge to write sentences. In particular this term, students will be reading narrative texts as a class. Students will then summarise these stories by writing a few sentences about the characters, setting, problem and solution from each text. We will also explore non-fiction texts as part of our Inquiry Unit, and use these texts to record information. 

Numeracy - Students are revising addition, subtraction and sharing. We are revisiting a range of games and activities to reinforce understanding of these concepts.

Inquiry - This term, our inquiry topic is What do living things need to survive? Our big topics will include: What are living things and how do we know they are living? What do different things require to stay alive? How can we help these things stay alive? Do living things need to be in the right place to stay alive?

Homework - Each Monday, students will be given an activity to complete at home that relates to our weekly sound or maths focus. The activity in their ‘Home Learning Book’ will be collected each Friday. Homework in Prep should take no longer than 15 minutes.  

Respectful Relationships - This term, our Respectful Relationships topic is stress management. Activities will assist students to identify their own emotions and express them constructively.

Prep: Key Dates Term Four

Enjoy the weekend. 

Warm regards,

The Prep Team–Caitlin Sullivan (Prep S), Hayley Thibou (Prep T) & Andrea Duxson (Prep D)