Prep Community News

Dear Prep Families,

We cannot believe how fast this Term is going! We are more than halfway into our first term of school and are feeling so incredibly proud of how our students have settled into the school year! All prep teachers have been talking about how ready our students are to be at school full time, as the month of March begins. Our Learning to Learn program is complete and we are excited to begin teaching our content areas which follow:

Writing:

In Writing, we’ve started learning to write letters correctly and say the sounds they make. So far, we have learnt the letters m, s, f and a. We teach students to begin writing at the green dot and to finish writing at the red dot (shown below), whilst saying the sound the letter makes. We have also been listening for these sounds at the beginning of different words, by stretching them out with stretching hands, and identifying the beginning sound.

We have also been learning about drawing ‘5 Star Illustrations’, ensuring we draw big, clear pictures outlined in grey lead pencil and colouring the picture in afterwards trying our best to stay within the outline. 

Reading:

In Reading, we’ve been learning to retell short texts. Students have practiced identifying the character, problem, feeling, action and solution, before retelling the text in their own words. At home, you can support your child to identify the different parts of the text using the sentence stems, “The character in the story is…” “The problem in the story is…” The character is feeling…” etc. as well as discussing what happened in the book using the sentence stem “In this book…”

Maths: 

In Maths, we have been practicing counting to 20, starting from any starting point. We have also focused heavily on counting objects accurately. A strategy that we can use is ‘count and move’. By moving the object away, we know that it’s already been counted and wont accidently count it again! We also focused on representing numbers to 20 in a range of different ways by making or drawing collections of objects to show the value of different numbers. You can practice this at home by choosing a number between 1-20 and asking your child to go and find that amount of something e.g. find 12 spoons, find 7 Lego pieces etc. 

Other Areas:

Some other areas of learning that we have been completing each week include Digital Technology and Respectful Relationships. During Digital Technology, students have been exploring the features of an ipad and most importantly, practicing to login to different learning apps using QR Codes. In Respectful Relationships, students have been learning how different emotions appear and the importance of being able to recognise different emotions.

Reminders:

• Take Home Reading: please support your child to bring their reading bag on their allocated day so that their teacher can check their nights of reading in their reading journal. We have some students who are so close to receiving their first reading certificate for 25 nights of reading!!
• Please ensure that Sip n Crunch containers contain cut up fruit that is separate from their lunchbox and students should only be drinking water at school.
• Hats are compulsory in Term 1 and 4. Please ensure your child has a hat that is labelled clearly with their name.
• Harmony Day celebrations will be on the 21/03. Your child can dress up in their favourite cultural clothes.