Prep News 

The Prep teachers would like to welcome all of you to Melton West Primary school and we are looking forward to an exciting year of learning with your children. Students will undertake learning centred around how to be a successful learner and the skills, routines and expectations needed. They will become familiar with the routines and will contribute to establishing a collaborative learning environment in which they will learn different strategies to assist with learning and support them to make positive choices. 

ENGLISH

Reading:

This term in reading we are learning about the expectations for reading lessons during the first four weeks.  During this time, students will collaboratively develop a classroom library based on their interests. Students will learn about the expectations of take home readers and what to expect during our reading blocks. They will also have opportunities to engage in shared reading, read alouds, conferencing and fluency pair reading with a focus on indicating the title of a book, where to start reading, reading from left to right across the page and discussing the placement of images and words in a book. Students will also engage in Phonics lessons which embed the process of teaching children the relationship between letters and sounds and how to use those relationships to read and write words. 

Writing: 

During the first twenty days of writing, students will engage in shared writing experiences, developing their oral language and their understanding that writing is a method to communicate a message. Students will explore what good writers do and learn about the structure of our writing lessons, writing expectations and the writing process through think, talk, draw and write. Once the first twenty days are completed and the Prep students are familiar with the writing routine and expectations, we will engage in a retell/recount unit of work, during this unit, students will learn how to share a recount of an experience or a story they have read. They will also be focusing on during their writing sessions, how to hold their pencil correctly, and how capital letters are used for names and the beginning of sentences, and full stops/punctuation marks signal the end of a sentence.

MATHEMATICS

In Mathematics, during the first 20 days students will engage in rote counting - e.g. counting songs, counting students, counting days of school , daily attendance, Lining up - ordinal number, Calendar math; What’s on today? Simple graphs - birthday graph, letters in their name, eye colour, people in your house, Math games and activities, sorting, and subitising - explore the concept of ‘how many’ without counting. We will then move onto number, counting with a focus on number sequence, before and after, matching numerals to representations of objects, Identifying how many objects are in a picture and continue with subitising - explore the concept of ‘how many’ without counting. We will also be learning about  Time (Days of the week), Pattern, where students follow a short sequence of instructions; recognise, copy, continue and create repeating patterns represented in different ways  and Space, where students describe the position and location of themselves and objects in relation to other people and objects within a familiar space.

INQUIRY

During the first 20 days, students will be learning about classroom procedures and expectations. Students will engage in lessons related to our morning and afternoon procedures, classroom rules, the school values and the positive behaviour matrix, which covers expected behaviours in all settings of the school, including inside and outside of the classroom, the toilets and digital technologies (iPad's). Students will also start an Inquiry topic called squeaky clean. Students will learn about and explore practices that they can follow to keep their body healthy and clean. We will be focussing on What should our daily hygiene routines be? What things can we do to keep clean? Why are some people’s health needs different to mine? 

SCIENCE

Welcome to all our Prep students! I look forward to seeing all the Preps in our weekly Science session.  This term Prep students will be focusing on the Biological Science strand.  Students will be looking at the needs of humans and animals and identifying that humans and animals need food, water, shelter, and sleep to survive. Students will learn about what plants need to survive and will have the opportunity to observe growing their seed.  Students will learn about their five senses – see, smell, hear, taste, touch – and will use them to explore familiar objects.  Throughout the term, students will be involved in many interesting activities, and hands-on experiments, providing a great introduction to Biological Science. This is an exciting term in Prep Science!

LOTE - AUSLAN

Welcome to Auslan 2025! During Term 1, Prep students will learn about:  

‘What is Auslan?’ (Australian Sign Language). Auslan is a signed language using the  hands, with no voice, which is used by the Deaf Community. They will learn the Auslan  Alphabet, and frequently used signs associated with Colours, Family, School, Farm  Animals, and Describing Animals. The students will also learn to sign Numbers in Auslan using their dominant (writing) hand. 

The topics taught are the core for future learning in Auslan. This learning will be introduced through explicit sign teaching videos, games, stories, and  group practice. Learning Auslan involves both expressive (signing) and receptive  understanding skills (reading back what others’ sign), hence activities are designed to  develop these skills. The students are encouraged to participate in lesson related  activities and to share their learning and understanding with their peers and teacher.  

At this level the focus is on learning Auslan signs through repetition with songs, games  and poems. Students mainly work in the whole group that is managed by the teacher.

ART

Welcome Preps to Art at Melton West Primary, 2025! Students will begin the term by settling into routines and following expectations in our art room environment. This will include what we do and what we can find in the art room. It will also include using art materials and tools correctly and safely and how we demonstrate positive behaviours during art lessons.

The topic for this term is Colour Theory. Students will be introduced to the Primary Colours of red, blue and yellow and how these can be mixed to make Secondary Colours, which are orange, green and purple. Students will use different mediums, such as paint and crayons, when creating artworks and mixing colours. They will look at artworks by different artists to explore how colours can be used. We are looking forward to an exciting beginning in Art with Prep; with lots of creativity and fun to be had!

P.E 

A huge welcome to the new prep students for 2025! In Physical Education we are working on the fundamental movement skills and introducing the students to game-based learning. During this term the expectations of Physical Education will be covered, and students will learn about being safe and respectful in these lessons. Some of the key fundamental movement skills that will be worked on include running, jumping, skipping, and hopping. In addition to this our students will be learning about how they feel after exercise and what positive impacts being healthy and physically active can have to a person. Every class will engage in games to work on teamwork and problem solving and we will begin to develop each student’s ability to follow rules and play fair. I am extremely excited to work with the prep cohort this year and can’t wait for all the wonderful learning that will take place.

MUSIC

Welcome to Term 1, Music, 2025! In Music, Grade Preps are learning about the routines and expectations of their learning environment. This includes using instruments safely and showing positive behaviours. The topic for this term is Sound. Students will get to explore making sounds with their voices and percussion instruments. They will learn the difference between speaking and singing including understanding pitch (high and low). Students will learn about tempo (fast and slow) and dynamics (loud and soft) when exploring with their voices, percussion instruments and ukuleles. Grade Preps will have the opportunity to create rhythms through improvisation. Grade Preps will be exposed to many songs including nursery rhymes to support their knowledge of sound. We are very excited about beginning our musical journey at Melton West Primary School.