Prep Community News
Dear Prep Families,
As we approach the final week of Term 2, we would like to take a moment to celebrate the wonderful learning and growth that has taken place throughout the term. It has been fantastic to see how much the children have developed in confidence, independence, and their readiness to learn since the beginning of the year.
The students have worked hard across all learning areas, embraced new challenges, and continued to build positive relationships with their peers. We are incredibly proud of their efforts, achievements, and the enthusiasm they bring to the classroom each day.
Thank you for your ongoing support throughout the term. We look forward to finishing the term on a positive note and celebrating all that the children have accomplished. Below is a snapshot of some of the learning that has been taking place in Prep this past fortnight:
InitiaLit:
In InitiaLit, we have been learning the sounds /k/ and /u/. Students have been practicing saying these sounds, identifying them in words, and matching the sounds to their corresponding letters.
At home, you can support your child by encouraging them to listen for the /k/ and /u/ sounds in everyday words. You might like to play a game where your child finds objects around the house that start with /k/, such as kite, key, or kangaroo, or words with the /u/ sound, such as umbrella, under, or up.
We have also been developing our oral blending skills, where students listen to individual sounds and blend them together to make a word (for example: /k/ /i/ /t/ → kit and /c/ /u/ /p/ → cup). As their confidence grows, students are using these skills to read simple words containing the sounds they have learned, such as kit, kid, cut, and up.
Click the link below to practice all of the sounds we have learned so far in Prep.
We have also been introducing tricky words during our InitiaLit lessons. These are words that students need to recognise instantly because parts of the word do not follow the sound patterns they have learned. Rather than sounding them out, students practice reading these words automatically to help build their fluency and confidence when reading.
The tricky words we have learned are:
Click this link to practice all of the tricky words we have learned so far in Prep
You can support your child's learning at home by revisiting these words regularly and encouraging them to recognise them quickly. Try using the words in everyday conversations, simple stories, or sentences like the examples below:
Storybook:
During our Storybook lessons, we have been enjoying the text There’s a Bear on My Chair by Ross Collins. As we read and discuss the story, students are exploring new vocabulary and learning what these words mean in different contexts. Our focus words from this text are nasty, rare, and despair.
As we read and talk about our Storybook text, students are developing their comprehension skills by sharing ideas, discussing characters and events, and explaining their thinking. These conversations help children deepen their understanding of the story and build confidence when expressing their thoughts.
At home, you can support your child's vocabulary growth by encouraging them to spot our focus words in books or conversations and talk about what they mean. You might also challenge them to think of a time when they have experienced or seen something that was nasty, rare, or caused despair.
Writing:
In Writing, we have been learning how to write simple sentences. We have been practicing leaving finger spaces between our words, using a capital letter at the beginning of a sentence, and a full stop at the end.
Using a picture prompt, the children helped write a sentence together and practiced stretching out words to hear the sounds they could write: “The fish sat in the red boat.”
Students then had a go at writing their own sentence about the picture, using their sound knowledge and sentence-writing skills to share their ideas.
Language Experience
Last Wednesday, our Prep students took part in the exciting Fairytale Fiasco incursion! The children stepped into a magical world where Fairytale Land had become mixed up and muddled. Dressed as a variety of fairytale characters, including dragons, wolves, pigs, witches, cats, and mice, students worked together to help restore order to the stories.
Through drama, role-play, and storytelling, students explored the structure of narratives and learned how stories have a beginning, middle, and end. They loved using their imaginations, expressing themselves through performance, and collaborating with their classmates throughout the adventure.
It was a wonderful hands-on learning experience that brought storytelling to life and created many smiles, laughs, and lasting memories.
Maths:
In Maths, students have been learning about bundling sticks and exploring how 10 individual sticks can be grouped together to make a bundle of ten. They have practiced counting by tens using the bundles and have also been developing their skills in counting on from a given number. 10 ones make 1 ten.
You can help your child at home by practicing counting by tens to find out how many sticks there are.
Students have also been investigating capacity through hands-on activities. They used mathematical language such as full, half full, and empty to describe and compare how much different containers can hold.
More recently, we have been learning about the area of 2D shapes. Students discovered that closed shapes have an area because they enclose a space inside them. Through practical activities, they explored and compared the amount of space within different shapes, building their understanding of area in an engaging way.
See if your child can identify which of these shapes are open and which shapes are closed!
General Reminders:
Reading regularly at home is a wonderful way to support your child’s learning and help them grow as confident readers. Even spending a few minutes each evening sharing a book, practicing decodable readers, or talking about stories can make a big difference to your child's reading development.
Each student has a designated reading satchel day, which is displayed on their classroom door. On this day, please ensure your child brings their reading satchel or red reading bag to school so they can exchange their books and safely transport library and take-home readers between school and home.
As we head into the final week of term, we kindly ask families to ensure that all belongings brought to school are clearly named. This includes uniform items, drink bottles, lunch boxes, and any other personal items. Having names on belongings makes it much easier for lost items to find their way back to their owners.
With the cooler weather now here, hats are no longer required during outdoor play. Students are still welcome to bring and wear a hat if they choose.
A reminder that students begin entering classrooms from 8:45 am to unpack and prepare for the day. Learning commences promptly at 8:55 am, so arriving on time helps students settle in and make a positive start to their learning. The school day concludes at 3:10 pm.
Thank you for continuing to support your child’s independence by encouraging them to enter the pod and classroom on their own each morning. If you need to contact your child’s teacher, please do so via the school office, and your message will be forwarded accordingly.
We hope our wonderful Prep students have an amazing holiday and enjoy their well-deserved break! If you can believe it or not, we are now officially half way through the year!
We will see you all back on Monday, the 13th of July, ready to start our Term 3 learning!
Kind regards,
PLC Prep