Grade Prep/1

Welcome to Week 5! Our Prep/1 students are thriving and continuing to make fantastic progress across all areas of their learning. It’s been a busy and exciting week in the classroom!

Reading

In Reading, we have been exploring a range of Indigenous stories to help us better understand Australia’s history and culture. This week, we read Somebody’s Land by Adam Goodes and Ellie Laing. The story sparked thoughtful discussions about the idea of terra nullius — meaning “nobody’s land” — and helped students understand that the land always belonged to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. We talked about respect, connection to Country, and how stories can help us learn about the past.

Sounds-Write

In our Sounds-Write sessions, we’ve been focusing on blending and segmenting words. Students are developing confidence in breaking words into individual sounds (segmenting) and pushing sounds together to read words (blending). These skills are the building blocks of both reading and writing. 

Writing

This week in Writing, we have been working on expanding our sentences to include more detail. We’ve been learning to answer four important questions: Who/What? What doing? Where? and When? For example, instead of writing “The dog ran,” students are learning to write sentences like “The black dog ran across the park in the morning.” This helps us create more interesting and descriptive writing pieces. 

Mathematics

In Maths, we have started our unit on length. Students have been exploring the concept by using informal units (such as blocks, paperclips, and string) to measure and compare different objects around the classroom. They’ve been learning to describe items as longer, shorter, or the same length.