Prep Wonga Weekly

INFORMATION

🗓️ Upcoming Dates:

Tuesday 4th March: Prep Parent Information Session - 5pm

Wednesday 5th March: Assessment #5 - last Wednesday at home

Monday 10th March: Labour Day holiday 

Tuesday 11th March: Preps start full weeks at school

Thursday 20th March: Colour Run

Thursday 27th March: School Photos

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

DROP OFF AND PICK UP IN LANTANA

Please be mindful of the road signs on Lantana Road. It is a NO PARKING zone in front of the school, during school start and finish times. To ensure a smooth and safe process, we have a designated pick-up system at the end of the day where a teacher monitors and guides students into cars lined up in the queue. This system works efficiently when there are no parked cars breaching the signage during these times. Thank you for your cooperation.

Prep Information Session

The information session will be held in the BER at 5pm. We will also talk about iPads, in preparation for Term 2. If you're unable to attend, don’t worry – we’ll share a summary with all the key takeaways by the end of the week.

🎨 Specialist timetable

Library has now been added to the timetable. All Prep classes have Library on a Monday.

If you haven't sent along a library bag for your child, please do so, as they are unable to borrow without a library bag.

This Wednesday - Last assessment day!!

This week is the last Wednesday for assessments.

CURRICULUM

📚 Phonemic awareness: reading and phonics

We are learning about the letter P, including the sound it makes (the 'phoneme') and how to write it using correct formation (the 'grapheme'). We will be putting taught phonemes and graphemes together to starting reading and writing VC (vowel-consonant) and CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) words.

Students will review the Heart Words - 'the' and 'I', and learn to read and spell 'and'.

Please note: we will explain UFLI in detail at our upcoming Information Session.

What can you do at home?

-Read bedtime stories to your child

-Talk about the letter P and review the sound/letter names of S, T, M and A

📝 Literature: reading responses and writing 

The mentor texts are Brave in Every Which Way by Maddy Mara and Lauren Degraaf and The Very Brave Bear by Nick Bland. These books have been carefully chosen to align with our CBL Guiding Questions, to highlight the quiet bravery within us all. Students will make 'text-to-self' connections, deepen their understanding of character by exploring setting and revise their comprehension of plot by reviewing the concepts of 'beginning, middle and end.'

Students will continue to strengthen their fine motor skills for writing by engaging in activities like playdough, tracing and cutting, which help build hand muscle strength. They will continue to develop a functional pencil grip (see pictures below) and focus on improving pencil control to correctly form the taught letters. This week, students will also practice writing words by combining the letters they have learned.

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

🔢  Maths 

Students will explore the concept of mass, building their vocabulary to include terms like 'light' and 'heavy.' They will also make connections to the length-related words of 'tall,' 'short,' 'wide,' and 'long.' Through the hands-on activity of 'hefting,' students will compare everyday objects, such as classroom items, to understand mass more deeply.

To wrap up their learning, students will create their own 'Potato Guy' and complete the sentence, "Potato Guy is heavier than... but lighter than..." Be on the lookout for Potato Guy to make his way home later in the week!

What can you do at home? 

-Have discussions using vocabulary of mass ie. 'which item do you think is heavier?' Ask your child to show you what hefting is

-Use Potato Guy (coming home at the end of the week) to complete the sentence "Potato Guy is heavier than ... but lighter than ..." You could use items in your pantry, toys ... anything!

-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

In Friendology, students are completing Session 3 called 'Making Friends'. This session teaches students strategies for making new friends, including how to introduce themselves and ask a friend to play.