Prep

Reading

Over the past fortnight, our Prep students have been continuing their exciting journey with letters and sounds! We've been learning how to link the sound /w/ to the letter w and the sound /ck/ to the letters ck, and how we can use these sounds when reading and writing words. We’ve also explored new double letters like ll, ss and ff, discovering how they often appear at the ends of words. It’s been wonderful to see students blending and segmenting these sounds to read and write short words with growing confidence.

In writing, we’ve been practising how to write simple question sentences. Students are learning to start with capital letters, leave finger spaces, and end with a question mark when asking something. We’ve also been using our "sky, grass, dirt" letter formation templates to help write our letters correctly.

This fortnight we’ve also focused on learning new tricky words. These are special words that don’t always follow the usual sound rules and need to be remembered by heart. We’ve been using visual prompts to help us remember and read them during our lessons, and students are beginning to spot these words in their books and even use them in their own writing!

Writing

Over the past two weeks, our Prep students have been busily working on their handwriting skills with a strong focus on correct letter formation using the “Sky, Grass, Dirt” visual framework. In Week 1, students explored grass letters – the ones that sit neatly in the middle space of the writing lines – including letters like s, a, i, m, c, n, o, r, e and u. The following week, we shifted our focus to sky letters, such as t, d, h, b, k and l, which reach up into the sky space of our writing.

The purpose of these sessions has been to support students in learning to form each letter correctly using one smooth, continuous stroke. Students have been practising identifying where each letter lives on the line – whether it's in the sky, grass, or dirt – and how to use that knowledge to guide their writing. We’ve been using a range of engaging strategies to build these skills, including whole-class sky-writing with our fingers, using whiteboards, stencils, letter games, and hands-on rotations with small group support.

Some of the crowd favourites have included the “Roll and Write” dice game, letter Snakes & Ladders, and the “Ship, Shark, Shore” movement game where students had to decide where each letter belonged and race to the right zone in the classroom. These activities have made learning both meaningful and memorable, and it's been so rewarding to see students applying their knowledge and growing in confidence each day.

We’re incredibly proud of the progress our Preps are making in developing their handwriting foundations and look forward to continuing this work as the term progresses.

Maths

Over the past fortnight in Maths, our Prep students have been exploring the world of addition and subtraction within 10. We’ve used a range of engaging pictorial representations to help us count objects and work out totals or differences. Students have been building their number sense by identifying how many items are shown, how many are added or taken away, and what the final amount is.

We’ve also been learning how to represent these number stories using ten-frames. This visual tool has helped students organise their thinking and clearly see how numbers can be made or changed. Alongside this, students have been creating their own addition and subtraction stories to match given pictures—combining imagination with maths thinking! It’s been a joy watching them explain their stories using language like “First there were… then… now there are…” as they grow in confidence and mathematical understanding.

Additional Subjects

This fortnight in Integrated Studies, our Prep students have been learning all about places – what they are, where they can be found, and how to identify their features. We began our unit by exploring the question: What is a Place? Using images, class discussions, and the story Imagine by Alison Lester, we learned that places can be real or imagined, big or small, and we all experience different places in our lives. Students then reflected on the places they have personally visited, such as the beach, park, zoo, or even their own backyard! They worked in pairs to brainstorm and share ideas before completing their “Places I Have Visited” worksheets, where they drew and labelled four places that are familiar to them. As we progressed, we focused on the features of places, especially places in our local community like parks, shops, and beaches. We read Sheep on a Beach by P. Crumble and talked about what we might expect to see at the beach, compared to some of the funny and unusual things in the book – like sheep! Using a fun visual game called Spot the Odd Feature, students identified what didn’t belong in different environments. They then completed their own Features of Places worksheet by matching the correct items to places like the beach, park, and supermarket.

In our Respectful Relationships lessons this week, our Prep students have been learning how our actions and decisions can affect others, and how to manage big emotions in kind and respectful ways. We began by discussing what it looks like when someone is being friendly and respectful at school—both in the classroom and during playtime. Students were quick to share their ideas, such as:

• helping others when they’re hurt
• taking turns with equipment
• using kind words and listening when someone is talking

We also explored what it feels like when someone is unfriendly or unfair, helping students build empathy by considering how their choices impact others. To put this learning into action, students worked in small groups to create “friendly poses” – frozen scenes that showed positive and respectful behaviours in the playground. Some groups acted out helping a friend up after a fall, while others showed taking turns or inviting someone new to join a game. Later in the week, we introduced the Melting Tiger game – a fun and imaginative activity designed to help students practise self-calming and self-control. We pretended to be big, angry tigers holding our muscles tight... until the warm sun melted us into soft, calm puddles on the floor. Students learned how to:

• recognise feelings of anger
• slow their bodies and calm their breathing
• reflect on how to return to a peaceful state

We finished by talking about what helps us calm down when we feel like we have an “angry tiger” inside—some students said taking deep breaths, others suggested finding a quiet space, or talking to a teacher or friend.

During Culture lessons, students have been listening to Dreamtime stories and learning to talk about the animals and characters within them. We explored how Aboriginal people use music and dance to tell stories, a tradition that began long before writing was used. Through the story Shake a Leg, we discussed how characters connect through food, music, dance, and culture. We talked about why music and dance are important, and students shared their own experiences with music and dance at home or in the community. We introduced traditional instruments like the didgeridoo and clapsticks, and students enjoyed tapping rhythms to explore how music tells stories. We also learned and practised the Didgeridoo Dance together, focusing on rhythm, movement, and respect. In addition to stories and music, students are learning about the important symbols used by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to pass on stories and information. We introduced students to traditional symbols—like the ones representing people, meeting places, waterholes, and animal tracks—and discussed how these symbols tell stories about the land and journeys. Students have been hands-on, creating their own symbols using materials such as clay, natural items, crayons, and chalk. Many made story maps by combining symbols, helping them understand how storytelling can be done visually as well as through words. In circle time, children shared their favourite symbols and explained their meanings, deepening their appreciation for this unique and ancient form of communication.