Dear Prep Families,

Welcome back Prep families! We hope you all had a fun and relaxing term holiday. The students are now in their last term of the school year, and we are so proud of the progress they have made and continue to make! Let’s review the learning we have been doing since returning to school.

English:

Through our InitiaLit program, we have been revising all previous sounds as well as learning some new ones! We have learned that ‘wh’ says /w/, ‘th’ says /th/ as in thumb, ‘ng’ says /ng/ and ‘oo’ says two sounds /oo/ (long vowel sound) such as in boot and /ʊ/ (short vowel sound) such as in look. You can help to support your child at home by asking them “what sound?” when they see the letters. Here are some visual prompts:

After introducing a new sound and connecting it to its corresponding letter (s), we then practice reading and writing. We provide opportunities to read and write CVC/CVCC words using the sounds they have learnt. You can support your child at home by asking them to tell you the sounds in a word and then asking them to write it. Please see a list of examples below:

thick, food, wheel, swoop, thud, room, whip, zoom, thud, book

We have also introduced more tricky words! These are words that cannot be sounded out using the sounds we have learnt, so we must learn them through sight. To support your child at home, you can ask them to read and spell each tricky word. Our new tricky words are:

what, where, want, come, some

Click here to practice all the trick words we have learned so far!

Story Book:

Our new story this fortnight is Thunderstorm Dancing, written by Judy Watson and Katrina Germein and illustrated by Judy Watson. Our focus words from this text are pounding, twirling, and gleaming.

Through our story book lessons, we learn essential reading skills such as predicting, summarising as well as answering questions about the text. We then make connections between the text, ourselves and the world around us. To support your child’s vocabulary development, you can ask them for the definition of each word or to use it in a sentence!

Writing:

In writing, we began to learn the difference between an imaginative text and an informative text. Imaginative texts are made up stories that are written to entertain us. Whereas an informative text are texts that give us information to help us to learn about a topic. Students have started exploring different animals and forming sentences about what they look like, where they live, and what they do. You can support your child at home by using simple sentence starters and encouraging them to finish the sentence. For example:

“Dogs are big and fast.”
“Dogs can jump and roll.”

This helps build their understanding of how to describe animals using informative language.

Maths:

In Maths, we have been exploring a variety of exciting new concepts!

We began by learning to say and write ‘-ty numbers’. Students have been practising counting by 10s and now understand that -ty numbers (like 20, 30, 40) have tens but no ones. They have been using our place value chart and bundling sticks to help them accurately write and represent these numbers. You can support your child at home by showing the example below and asking how many.

We also continued to build on our understanding of addition by exploring number bonds through the part-part-whole model. This has helped students see how numbers can be broken apart and put back together in different ways. You can support your child at home by showing the example below and asking them to share the number bond.

Additionally, we have been investigating Data Displays. Students are learning to identify the difference between:

Open-ended questions, such as “What is your favourite colour?”, and
Closed-ended questions, like “Do you like ice cream?”

They have been practising asking questions, listening carefully to responses, and recording data in charts or tables. This helps them understand how information can be collected and displayed.

Health:

This term in Health, students are learning about actions that help us stay healthy, safe, and physically active. We have begun by focusing on water safety and learning how to stay safe around swimming pools, at the beach, and near other bodies of water. To support your child at home, you can start a conversation by asking: “How can we be safe around swimming pools?” or “What should we do to stay safe at the beach?”

Reminders:

Swimming (check compass for dates):

Consent and Payment ($25) due on compass. In Term 4, Prep students will participate in a 5-day school Swimming Program, delivered by Saltwater Swim School. When attending, students will be required to independently change their clothes. Between now and then, it would be a great idea to support your child to independently practise skills such as undressing, drying their body, dressing, putting socks/shoes on so that they are ready to swim in the pool!

Take Home Reading:

At Tarneit Rise, we encourage reading every night. Each child has an assigned day to change their reading books. Please bring their reading satchel on this day so classroom teachers can check reading journals and assist your child in getting new books.

Building Independence:

A friendly reminder that parents should not be entering the pods in the morning. Please say goodbye to your child at the door and encourage them to walk in themselves and put their bag away independently. This will be important practice for when they progress to Grade 1 (can’t believe we are mentioning Grade 1 already, where has this year gone!?).

We love celebrating the children’s achievements, big and small, and we hope this newsletter gives you a glimpse into their daily experiences and progress. Thank you for your continued support and partnership. We can’t wait to see what the next few weeks bring!

Warm Regards,

PLC Prep

The Fortnight Ahead