Prep Wonga Weekly

INFORMATION

🗓️ Upcoming Dates:

Monday 10th March: Labour Day holiday 

Tuesday 11th March: Preps start full weeks at school

Friday 14th March: Pop Up Canteen

Thursday 20th March: Colour Run

Thursday 27th March: School Photos

Friday 4th April: Last day of Term 1 - 2.30pm dismissal

Book Pockets & Home Reading Journals

-This week, your child will bring home their book pocket and home reading journal. This is an exciting time as it is the beginning of their journey to becoming a reader!

-To start with, we will be sending home decodable passages, which contain the letters/sounds that students have learnt in class. We will send home two of these each week, as sounds are introduced.

-In the home reading journal, please write down the name of the text that your child has read and indicate, using the coloured dots, how successful the experience was.

-We will check home reading journals once a week on a Friday, so please refrain from using it as a place to convey messages to us, as they may be missed.

-A note on books: Books will be sent home starting in Term 2, once students have mastered enough of the alphabetic code to read the first stage of books. We aim for home reading to be a positive and enjoyable experience, allowing students to confidently apply what they’ve learned at school to their reading at home.

Information Night - Summary Notes

🎨 Specialist timetable

CURRICULUM

📚 Phonemic awareness: reading and phonics

We are learning about the letters F and I (short vowel sound as in 'igloo'), including the sounds they make (the 'phoneme'), how to write them using correct formations (the 'grapheme') and the cued articulation. 

Students will review the Heart Words - the, and, I, a

What can you do at home?

-Read bedtime stories to your child

-Review the sound/letter names and cued articulation for letters taught so far - short A, M, S, T and P

-Assist your child to read the decodable passages in their book pocket

📝 Literature: reading responses and writing 

The mentor texts are The Five Rules of Friendship by Jess Sanders and Pearl Barley and Charlie Parsley by Aaron Blabey. These books have been carefully chosen to align with our CBL Guiding Questions. The focus is on friendship, and we will reflect on what it means to be a good friend and how we can show kindness and support to others.

Students will be completing their own mini book about The Five Rules of Friendship, where they will make 'text to self' connections. Using Pearl Barley and Charlie Parsley, they will compare and contrast similarities and differences. 

Now that we have learned enough vowels to write words, we are beginning to form CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) words and even use them to write simple sentences. This is an exciting milestone for our Prep students! 

Students will also complete handwriting practise of our two focus letter, F and I.

We will continue to build in activities that help develop fine motor skills for writing.

What can you do at home?

-Play with things that develop fine motor skills like lego, playdough, drawing and building blocks

-Help your child develop their pencil grip, using the guides below

-Write the letters A, M, S, T and P using taught lower case formations. Use these letters to write some words! 

🔢  Maths 

Students will discuss the purpose of graphs and why they are important. They will investigate and collect data by answering 'yes' or 'no' questions (e.g., "Do you like apples?"). They will then represent this information in a data display or simple graph. Students will also create their own column graphs using data we’ve collected as a class and explore pictographs.

What can you do at home? 

-Continue to count collections using 1-1 counting (ie. one touch, one number)

-Write numbers using taught formations

🌏 CBL - Connections

This week, we are exploring some of our Guiding Questions through our Mentor Text discussions and tasks (see above in literature).

We are also developing our understanding of Connections through our Wellbeing programs of Friendology and Respectful Relationships - see below!

 💛 Wellbeing & School Wide Positive Behaviour (SWPBS)

In Friendology, students are completing Session 4 called Friendship Facts. This session anchors students in the ‘truths’ of friendship so they have realistic expectations. Students learn what respect looks and sounds like in their friendships. Statements like "You're not my friend anymore!" can be hurtful, so it's important to help our students develop better ways to communicate with their friends.

Our SWPBS focus is the expectation of 'Be Kind'. We will work on including others by asking if they would like to join in games.