Argus-Xenica

Welcome!

Welcome to our last newsletter of Term 2! It has been a busy term with lots of exciting things happening in the Prep Area. 

Phonics

In Phonics, students have been learning new digraphs such as ‘sh’,‘ch’ and ‘ng’.  They’ve practised saying the sounds, writing the letters in the air and on whiteboards, and reading words like shut, cash, fish, shed, wish, ring, sing, king, long and thing .

We also introduced new high-frequency words: ‘says’, ‘come’, ‘all’, ‘love’ and ‘out’. Students have sounded out each word, practised spelling them, and used them in simple sentences. These activities help build confidence in reading and support early writing skills. To further support students knowledge of high frequency words, please ensure you are practising your child's allocated high frequency word list with them each day.

Each of the words that students have been learning have been put into context to give students a better understanding of their use and purpose in the English language. 

Reading

In Reading, prep students have been learning to use different decoding strategies for example; 1. Looking at the first letter of the word, 2. Stretch out the sounds in the words and 3. Look at the pictures on the page)  to help them solve tricky or new unfamiliar words, using the decodable strategies will also help students to learn to read their High Frequency Words in a text. Students have also learnt how to answer literal questions by finding information directly from the text, because it helps us understand what is happening in the story and then this will help them with their understanding of the beginning, middle and ending of the story to apply it in their writing. Students have been reading texts as a class and are learning to infer the character's feeling so they can understand the text better to then make text-to-self connections by relating what happens in the story to our own experiences.

Writing

In Writing, we have been learning how to write recounts and retell stories.  Students have practised drawing a picture and writing a sentence about something they did on the weekend. They have also listened to different stories, such as and learned how to retell the beginning, middle, and end by identifying the characters, setting, and important events. Students have written a sentence and drawn a matching picture for each part of the story. They have also practised writing sentences from dictation by listening carefully to each word, writing on the line, checking their work for mistakes, and reading back their sentences to make sure they make sense.

Maths

In Maths, students have been learning about sharing. They learnt how to share objects equally between two or more groups. Students investigated sharing up to 20 objects using counters, counting sticks and pictures of different food. The prep classes also played a lot of sharing games, such as the cookie thief . They explored which group had equal amounts and whether there was a remainder. Students also learned about money. They explored Australian notes and coins and discussed the value of silver and gold coins.  They had so much fun using toy money in play-based experiences, such as a toy shop and a canteen. Students consolidated their learning by understanding that money is earned when somebody is providing a service to someone and through work. Well done on an amazing month of Maths Preps!

Inquiry 

In Inquiry students have been learning about the five senses- taste, smell, touch, feel and hearing. They have been exploring these five senses in the classroom and also outside in the yard and different parts of the school. Students have been using their five senses to do mindfulness to recognise how different parts of their body feels when they are still and quiet and have been using these skills to get back into the green zone. All of the prep classes have been very engaged in experiments such as mixing different coloured primary colours to make secondary colours. All of the students really enjoyed this experiment telling the teachers how much fun they had exploring and making their favourite colours. We also had our inquiry incursion where students tasted different foods to explore the taste sense. Students tasted vinegar, lemon juice, chocolate, soy sauce, pretzels and lemonade. They commented on how each food tasted such as sour, sweet, yummy, yucky and salty. Well done on an amazing month of Inquiry Preps!

Social and Emotional Learning

In Social and Emotional Learning, students have been learning about different kinds of emotions and feelings. They have shared what they notice in their bodies when they are feeling a particular emotion and what are some strategies they can use to get themselves back into the green zone, where they are happy, relaxed and ready to learn. They also talked about how one's facial expressions and body language can give away how a person is feeling and how they need to take responsibility for their actions when they feel angry, upset or frustrated. The Prep children also talked about consent and permission. Students role-played scenarios and agreed which situations they can give consent or refuse consent. They understood that it is alright not to give permission if they feel uncomfortable about it, as long as they say it in a respectful or kind way. Great job on a fantastic month of SEL, Preps!

100... 101 Days of School 

This year we will be celebrating 101 Days of School over the week beginning 28th July. This is an exciting time for our Preps and we can't wait to celebrate with the students. 

Reminders

🌟 Home Readers are to be changed each day

🌟 Please return your homework book and home reader diary each Friday to be checked

🌟 Please provide payment and consent for our Animal Land excursion via Compass

🌟 Library bags every Wednesday