Prep

Dear Prep families, 

Welcome back to Term Four! As we approach the end of the year, we look forward to celebrating learning and growth in our Prep students as they prepare to embark on new journeys.

Unit of Inquiry Five

In Week One, students were exposed to our provocation task for our final Unit of Inquiry this term under the Transdisciplinary theme ‘Where We Are in Place and Time’. Students read the mentor text ‘Wilfred Gordon McDonald Partridge’ by Mem Fox, and were engaged in exploring a memory box with their teachers and reflected on their own memories. 

Each class unpacked our new central idea, ‘Journeys inspire our imagination’ and had class discussions on what those words meant to them. We will reflect on our central idea throughout the term. 

Reading

This term our focus in Reading is on narratives where students will be learning about the parts of a narrative: beginning, middle and end. They will be exploring the features of a narrative (characters, setting, problem and solution) through various fiction mentor texts.

Students are encouraged to continue practising their reading at home with the use of reading strategies, key ring words and comprehension questions. 

Writing

As students begin to explore the features of a narrative, they will be learning about writing their own narrative following the writing structure of beginning, middle and end. This fortnight students have experimented with writing various beginnings using their imagination to create characters and settings for their stories.

Students also continue to focus on using the correct sentence structure in their writing, ensuring they begin their sentence with a capital letter, use finger spaces between words and finish each idea with appropriate punctuation.

Maths

In Maths, students continue to engage in activities to improve their number knowledge and develop a strong sense of trust the count.

Students have begun to explore the concept of addition and are learning to use verbal action stories to model addition using the 'count all' strategy. Students have also explored the part-part whole strategy to solve these addition problems. Key vocabulary words we use when discussing addition are: combine, add, more, makes, and, altogether, total, addition. We encourage students to use this vocabulary when discussing addition at home.

Prep Wellbeing

In Wellbeing over the past two weeks, our Prep students have focused on the rules of fair play in popular games. They discussed how boys and girls can play together fairly, share space during different games and interact in single-gender groups. Students also recognised that mean talk based on gender is unfair. Additionally, they explored the feelings associated with violence, identifying both physical sensations and the impact of violent behaviour versus friendly play. They practised demonstrating actions that are friendly and fair, as well as recognising the emotional differences in various play scenarios.

REMINDERS

• If your child is absent, please ensure the reason is entered on XUNO; if you need support with this please reach out to the office staff.
• Classroom doors open at 8.20am and lessons begin at 8.30am. If by change you arrive late (8:40 am onwards) you are required to obtain a late pass from the office.
• Please remember to pack a spare change of clothes for your child. Sometimes, little children can have toileting accidents and spills at school.
• Your child’s iPad is charged and brought to school every day.
• Students are required to be sun smart and wear their school hat when outside. during Term Four.

• If your child can read their sight words, they can try writing them. Once they can write the words correctly, they can move on to using them in sentences. 

           Kind regards, 

           The Prep Team.