What's happening in Prep! 

The Preps have had a very busy term and have been working very hard. They are continuing to form friendships in the classroom and working on building on these relationships in a positive way. 

Students are working on following routines and becoming more independent through organisation during the mornings and throughout the day with support and direction. 

In Reading, students have learnt a large range of letters and sounds and the Cued Articulation action to match the letter and sound. They are reading and writing words using their sound and letter knowledge. Students are learning to read and write ‘tricky words’ to build on the students being able to read texts. It has been fantastic to send home the readers to your child this term and this has definitely given the children confidence to read stories at home and in the classroom. 

In Writing, we have focused on constructing short sentences using their sound and letter knowledge and also writing modelled sentences. They have worked on forming upper and lowercase letters correctly. Students have been introduced to using a capital letter at the beginning of a sentence and full stop at the end when forming sentences. Students have been learning to put two finger spaces between words and reading back their writing to see if it makes sense.

In Mathematics, the children have been learning about number concepts. We have learnt about solving addition problems using the count on strategy and using concrete materials to solve problems correctly. We have also been learning about partitions to five and ten using  hands on materials such as number frames and unifix cubes. 

We also learnt about Data and Representation. Students composed questions with a ‘yes’ and ‘no’ answer. They then needed to collect data from classmates using tally marks. Students used this data to create simple graphs and made statements representing the data that they collected. They also learnt how to interpret simple graphs. They really enjoyed this unit and did a fantastic job. 

In Integrated, we had a very busy term of learning. In our Living Things Unit, students had fun on their first ever excursion to the Melbourne Zoo. This supported our learning of living things and what animals need to survive and their habitat in which animals live.  We also focused on sequencing the life cycle of the butterfly in order which they really liked  learning about. 

At the end of the unit, students discussed how we can protect our animals and the impact global warming has on animals' habitats. We discussed ways on what we can do to reduce global warming such as recycle, use less electricity and eat more fruits and vegetables. 

Our next Integrated Unit we learned was Chemical Science. This was a hands-on topic where children were engaged in all of the experiments we did! The experiments that the children took part in were all ‘cause and effect’ based experiments. 

We discovered what would happen if we combined substances or materials together and how it would turn into another state. The students really loved this unit and it was great to see the students become ‘scientists’ and participate enthusiastically  in all activities. Well done Preps!

We are proud of what our Preps have achieved so far and we are looking forward to another semester of positive learning. We hope that the children have a fantastic holiday and we are excited to see you all back in Term Three!

Sarah O’Hara and Marie Georgiadis