Prep News

Welcome to our Prep newsletter! We are so excited to share our amazing learning and journey together. Please check the timetable below for your child's weekly Specialist times, including Library and Curious Corner.

📅 Important Dates & Reminders

All important dates and events are available on our Compass Calendar. Please check the calendar regularly to stay up to date.

• From Monday 9th all Prep students will be attending school from Monday to Friday - 9:00am to 3:30pm.

• Please remember to bring your ‘red bag’ back to school with their name on it so that your child can use it as a Library bag. 

• Students are required to bring their take-home bags to school daily. Please always check inside these for important information, notices or student work. 

Literacy 

This fortnight in Prep we have been working hard on mastering our letter names and sounds. Each day we practise the letter name and sound for the whole alphabet, building our confidence and fluency. During Word Work, we have been focusing closely on the letters 

S, A, T, P, I, N and M. In these sessions, students have been:

• Identifying sounds
• As a class decoding CV and CVC (consonant–vowel–consonant) words

• Watching teacher demonstrations of encoding words (listening carefully to the sounds in a word and writing them down)

   

It has been wonderful to see students beginning to apply their sound knowledge when reading and writing. In Literature, we have been exploring the text Stay for Dinner. Together, we have discussed our responses to a range of:

• Literal (“right there”) questions – finding answers directly in the text

• Inferential (“use the clues”) questions – thinking more deeply and using evidence from the story to support our ideas

   

Our handwriting focus has been on correctly forming the lowercase letters in SATPINM. Students have been practising:

• Holding their pencil correctly using our “alligator grip”

• Forming letters carefully using our “Peggy Leggo” prompts

   

It has been fantastic to see the care and effort students are putting into presenting their work neatly and showing our school value ‘Aspire’.

Thank you for your continued support at home. Practising letter sounds, reading together, and encouraging correct pencil grip all make a big difference. We are so proud of the progress our Prep students are making!

Preview - We will continue reading the text Stay for Dinner and building our literal and inferential comprehension skills. Students will practise finding important information directly from the text, as well as thinking more deeply to make inferences about characters, events and feelings.

In Word Work, we will begin using the letters and sounds o, d, g, l, i, m, f and c. Students will practise identifying these sounds in words, forming the letters correctly, and blending and segmenting sounds to read and write CVC words.

Knowledge Rich

We have just begun our exciting Knowledge-Rich Unit on the Five Senses. Students are exploring how each sense works and how we use our senses to understand the world around us. There has already been lots of curiosity and thoughtful discussion!

We have explored the sense of sight, learning that our eye is in fact shaped like a ball and sits in our eye socket. We spent time working with partners to study the iris and pupil, and to understand how our sight helps to protect us.

Following this, we learnt about the sense of hearing and discovered that sound travels in invisible sound waves. We also discussed the importance of protecting our ears and how volume can affect them.

Preview - We will continue exploring the Five Senses and deepen our understanding of how they help us learn about the world around us. As part of this unit, we will learn about inspiring individuals such as Helen Keller, who lost her sight and hearing but learned to communicate and advocate for others, and Ray Charles, a talented musician who was blind. Through their stories, students will develop an understanding of resilience, perseverance, and the different ways people experience the world.

Mathematics

This fortnight, our students have been exploring patterns and the concept of the ‘unit of repeat’, identifying the part of a pattern that repeats over and over. Throughout our learning activities, students have engaged with two-part and three-part repeating patterns using a variety of materials and contexts to deepen their understanding. They identified patterns through colours, body movements, hands-on objects, and even extended their learning to include number patterns. By sorting, creating and continuing patterns, students are developing strong observation skills, problem-solving abilities, and mathematical thinking in a fun and active way. 

To demonstrate their understanding, students created a two or three part pattern with unifix cubes and also engaged in hands-on activities to show their competence. 

Preview -Next fortnight, students will be learning about Measurement, with a focus on the concept of Time - understanding long and short durations. Students will explore the difference between events that take a short amount of time and those that take longer, using everyday examples from their own experiences.

Wellbeing 

Friendology is an evidence-based friendship skills curriculum developed by URStrong that teaches children to build healthy, respectful, and resilient relationships. It empowers students to navigate conflict, distinguish between healthy and unhealthy behaviors, and develop self-compassion. 

Students have completed two sessions:  ‘Inner ninja’ - learning about how they can treat themselves like a best friend, and ‘True colours’ - learning about feeling 'bright and sparkly' or 'dark and gloomy' and naming their emotions and feelings. 

Preview - Next fortnight, students will learn about making friends and the four friendship facts.

Buddies 

Our Prep students had a beautiful time meeting their Grade 5 buddies! They shared school stories, offered helpful advice, and even exchanged a kind word and heart to remind one another that they are always there for support. It was wonderful to see these new friendships forming, with our Grade 5 students reassuring their Prep buddies that they have someone to look out for them in the yard and around the school. 

Curious Corner 

Please enjoy these photos of our Prep students exploring and having fun in our “Curious Corner” play space! Our learners have been delighting in a range of activities, games, and toys that not only spark curiosity, imagination and decision-making, but also support essential learning and development. Through play, children are learning to share and take turns, practise cooperation, and build confidence in social interactions, all of which strengthen their social and emotional skills. Play experiences like these help children communicate, negotiate, develop empathy, and regulate their emotions in safe, engaging ways, laying strong foundations for lifelong learning and positive relationships.

Homework

Prep 2026, Additional Homework

Literacy 

• Enjoy reading to your child nightly using books from your home, local library and school library. 
• Practice writing your name, numbers and SATPINM letters (both lowercase and uppercase).
• Please practice reading SATPINM (letter tiles) letter names and sounds.

Mathematics

• Practice reading and writing your numbers 1-10

Meet the Teacher 

 Birthdays 

Student Awards

Please note that when Prep students begin attending assembly, one student from each grade will be selected by their teacher to receive a 'Student of the Week' award. Parents and carers of the selected child will be notified by email (please note this will be for their first award only).

Have a wonderful weekend,

The Prep Team

Mrs Sandeman, Miss Bouloukis and Miss Sweetten.