Prep 

INFORMATION

🐨 Excursions on Sentral

We have two exciting excursions coming up! Our trip to Mont De Lancey is next Friday 31st October, followed by Healesville Sanctuary on Thursday 13th November. Please make sure you’ve given permission and completed payment for both excursions via Sentral.

🎒Prep 2026 Transition this Wednesday

We are excited to be welcoming our 2026 Prep students for their very first Transition session this Wednesday 22nd October. They will be at school for the first two sessions of the day.

During this time, our current Preps will be working with CRTs and continuing their regular learning in the BER classrooms. When your child arrives at school, they will need to head straight to the amphitheatre and wait for the teachers to collect them. 

We will also talk with the children beforehand to help them understand what’s happening and feel comfortable about the change in routine. If you think it would be helpful, please also have a chat with your child at home to help them feel ready for the morning.

🎉 This week!

We have a busy and exciting week this week! Along with our Prep Transition session, we also have two special incursions connected to our Term 3 topic of Change.

On Thursday, we’ll step back in time to experience what school was like in the past, and on Friday, we’ll enjoy a Bush Dancing incursion. This will be great preparation for dancing the night away at our 130th Birthday Celebration on Friday evening.

Phew - what a fun week ahead!

📚Library

There will be no library sessions this week or next week, due to the Art Show being displayed in the BER.

✍🏼 Whiteboard markers

Some students are running low on their whiteboard markers, and a few have already finished their allocation. If you’d like to, you’re very welcome to send an extra marker to school, which we will put straight into your child’s bag for them to use. If not, students will still be able to take part in all activities using their clipboard and writing paper instead.

CURRICULUM

📚 Phonemic awareness: reading and phonics

We are learning about the remaining long vowel sounds. This week we are learning 'e_e' as in eve and 'u_e' as in cube. We will also complete a review of the long vowel sounds. 

Our focus will include:

• Learning the phonemes (the sounds the letters make).
• Practising the graphemes (how we write the letters with correct formation).
• Reading longer words such as theme and flute.
• Reading short texts that include the focus long vowel sounds, as well as previously learned digraphs.

We’ll also learn the Heart Words: one and once as well as reviewing previously learned heart words.

What can you do at home?

• Help your child read the take-home book, decodable passages and Heart Words from their book pocket. Aim for fluency by the second day of reading. 

As your child reads, encourage them to recognise familiar words instantly and only sound out unfamiliar ones.

• Enjoy bedtime stories together to build vocabulary, comprehension and a love of reading.

• If you're interested in learning more about Cued Articulation, you can watch this helpful video by Jane Passey (the founder), where she explains and demonstrates each sound: 

https://youtu.be/gyGX3RcLG74?si=h0n6hahCfpIda4Gr 

• Work through the optional UFLI home pages if you’d like some extra phonics practise at home.

📝 Literature: reading responses and writing 

Our Mentor Text is Edward the Emu by Sheena Knowles. We’ll revisit the key elements of narrative stories, including the characters and setting, as well as the story structure of beginning, middle and end. Students will also reflect on the moral of the story and discuss what Edward learns along the way. In addition, we’ll explore the rhyming structure of the text and create our own rhyming word lists.

All of our Mentor Text sessions will include writing opportunities for students to apply and extend their learning. Students are also continuing to build confidence and control in their handwriting by practising letter formation using their Sky, Grass, Ground writing books.

What can you do at home?

• Practise 'boss letters' and then practise its cousins (see below).

• Build in authentic writing experiences like writing a shopping list, birthday cards, wish lists or notes for family members. 

• Say it, then write it – Ask your child to say their sentence out loud first, then write it down.

• Check for capitals and full stops – Remind your child to start with a capital letter and finish with a full stop.

•  Practise writing the Heart Words, taking care to notice the tricky 'heart' parts in the word.

🔢  Maths 

We will be comparing and ordering two-digit numbers using hands-on materials, solving place value problems that require reasoning and exploring questions that may have more than one possible answer. We’ll also begin learning about Australian coins by recognising their features, their value and how they are used in everyday life.

What can you do at home?

• Practise counting forwards and backwards from different starting points (e.g. start at 47 and count back to 30).

• Look for two-digit numbers in your environment (letterboxes, signs, prices) and talk about the tens and ones.

• Play “Who has more?” by picking two numbers and asking your child which is greater or smaller, and how they know.

• Explore Australian coins together by discussing what you notice on each coin, such as the animal pictured and the coin’s value.

🌏 CBL - Discovery

In these sessions we will be exploring another one of our Guiding Questions - What are the basic needs of native plants and animals?