Prep/1 Mainstream

F/1

This fortnight, students are delving more deeply into learning about Earth and Space. They have explored how to use iPad’s to research information on EPIC! Books. Some topics that students have shown interest in include the different planets, astronauts, and more about the sun.

Next week, we celebrate book week! There will be lots happening in all classrooms around the school. Students have the opportunity to enter a writing competition for a chance to win a book voucher. Additionally, classes will be designing and creating decorations for their doors and entryways to reflect various book themes. Next Friday, 28th August, we will have a special book week assembly including a costume parade. This is a fun opportunity for students to dress up as their favourite book character!

Literacy

In Reading, students 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. Students in Foundation have begun looking at ‘th’ (thud, thump, thunk) making two sounds. ‘Th’ as in with and ‘th’ as in them. Year One students have been looking at ‘air’ as in chair.

In Writing, students continue to focus on developing their writing stamina. They have begun looking at story writing, making sure there is a beginning, middle and end to their stories. They have also looked at characters and settings in a story. Students 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 continued exploring the topic of measurement though real-world, hands-on activities. We have explored ways to compare, order, estimate and measure the mass of objects around our classroom by hefting and using the balance scales. When exploring capacity, students have used their estimation skills to practise identifying how much a container will hold. We also used cups to measure out water and, making sure we always fill the cup to the same level so that we can find an accurate measurement.

What tools at home do you use to measure length, mass and capacity? Why is accuracy important?

Students are also exploring numbers 0-120, finding patterns that will help them to compare and order them on a number line and a hundreds chart. There will be opportunities to use existing number knowledge and solve some real-world problems. Challenging tasks support students to develop perseverance and resilience, by giving tasks a go, using what you already know to solve a problem, and not being afraid to make mistakes! Mistakes are a great opportunity for learning.

Here are some games and activities that you might like to try at home:

Game 1: Bucket race

You will need at least two players, two identically-sized containers or buckets, two identically-sized cups and a dice.

1. Player 1 rolls the dice and adds that number of cups of water to their container/bucket.
2. Player 2 then does the same.
3. Whoever fills their bucket first is the winner!

Challenge: Before you play, estimate first how many cups you think it will take to fill. Adjust your estimation as you play based on what you see happening as you add more cups of water to your container.

Game 2: 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.

1. Spread all of your cards out and place them face down.
2. 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 3: 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.

1. Divide your cards into two piles face down. One for your partner and one for you.
2. 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.
3. 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.