Prep/1 Mainstream

This term, students are beginning to look at their place in space and ask questions about our solar system. They enjoyed a great planetarium experience with Cosmodome and reflected on what they already knew, what they learned and what they want to know more about.

We also had a great day celebrating 100 days of school. Students described what life would be like if they were 100 years old and predicted what life might be like in 100 years.

Literacy

In Reading, we will continue to focus on phonics, including sounding out words, reading fluency and spelling words.Students in both Foundation and Year One are revising spelling patterns with a spelling word list. Last week, all students looked at qu. This week foundation students will revise ll/ss/ff with a focus on double consonants that usually appear after a short vowel in a one syllable word. (doll, miss, puff). Year One students will revise the ai/ay spelling patterns with a focus on ai usually appearing in the middle of a word and ay usually appearing at the end of a word. (pain, snail, play, day). There are some exceptions to think about, particularly compound words such as playground and payday.

In Writing, students have looked at statements and questions in relation to space and their new learning. Students will continue to develop their writing stamina through different writing tasks over the week and will continue to focus on the following secretarial skills:

Writing the sounds they hear in each word
Starting a sentence with a capital letter
Putting a finger space between each word
Ending a sentence with a full stop, question mark or exclamation mark.
Forming letters correctly

Maths

In Mathematics, students have been engaging with foundational concepts, such as subitising and adding small collections by playing fun games and partner activities.

This Monday, we celebrated 100 Days of School. Students created their own crowns illustrated with 100 objects. They also practised counting collections of objects up to 100.

This week, the focus has been building a strong understanding of tens and one hundred facts, including how we use patterns to identify all the possible solutions to a problem. We have explored number lines more closely, including practising to create our own number lines by partitioning and using our visual spatial skills. Students will learn how to add and subtract within ten and twenty using number lines and tens frames.

Card and dice games are a great way for students to consolidate their ability to subitise small collections, add small collections, and subtract small collections. See below for some simple games that you can play at home.

All you need is a deck of cards…

Game 1: Tens or Hundred Facts Memory!

This is an easy and fun game to play on your own or with a partner. Remove the picture cards from your card deck. Ace is worth 1.

Spread all of your cards out and place them face down.
Turn over any two cards at a time and try to find as many sets of ten as you can! Eg. 9 and 1, 8 and 2, 7 and 3, etc.

Challenge: Pretend each card is a multiple of ten (eg. 9 = 90). How many hundreds facts can you find?

See if you can record ALL of the number sentences for your tens and hundreds facts!

Game 2: Addition Snap!

This is an easy and fun game to play with a partner. Remove the picture cards from your deck. Ace is worth 1.

Divide your cards into two piles face down. One for your partner and one for you.
Say “Ready, set, go!” Both partners place a card from their own pile down in the middle. The first person to add the cards together keeps the set.
Repeat until all cards are gone. The person with the most cards at the end is the winner!

Challenge: Pretend the cards are multiples of ten. 6 + 3 becomes 60 + 30.

Here are some photos of our students and their work: