Prep

Maths:

We’ve had an exciting few weeks in our classroom, diving deep into the world of 2D shapes through hands-on activities, group work, and creative projects. The students are developing a strong understanding of how shapes work together, how to sort them, and how they fit into the world around us. We kicked off our shape learning with a fun art activity! 

The students began by coloring different shapes on their rocket ship templates and then carefully cut them out. Using their knowledge of shapes and spatial awareness, they matched and glued the shapes onto a background to create their very own rocket ships. This activity encouraged precision, shape recognition, and a lot of creativity! Students have been working in small groups with physical shape manipulatives such as buttons, foam shapes, blocks, and cut-outs. They took turns sorting objects by features like color, shape, or size and then shared their reasoning with their peers. This collaborative environment fosters mathematical thinking and communication. One of the most deliciously fun activities was creating "Shape Pizzas!" Students used triangles, squares, circles, and rectangles as pizza toppings, filling their entire pizza base with as many 2D shapes as possible. After assembling their pizzas, they recorded and counted how many of each shape they used and then colored them to resemble real toppings like cheese, pepperoni, and vegetables!

This week in our math learning, we have been busy exploring numbers from 0 to 20, practicing counting forwards and backwards, and discovering how numbers can be represented in many different ways. Through movement games and hands-on activities, students are developing their number sense and becoming confident in counting, recognizing, writing, and using numbers in real-world contexts. It has been wonderful to see our students grow in confidence as they explore numbers in meaningful and playful ways. Ask your child to show you how they can count forward and backward from 20 or write their favourite teen number at home!

Reading: 

The last fortnight, prep students have been very busy learning new sounds and letters ‘k’ and ‘u’ and exploring how to use them when reading and writing words! Students were very stupised to find out that even though c and k are different letters, they make the same sound! 

We have also been working hard on writing sentences. Students have been learning how to start their sentences with a capital letter, leave finger spaces in between words and to finish their sentences with a full stop! We have also been learning how to correctly form letters using sky, grass dirt templates. 

In addition to our letters and sounds, we’ve been learning some new tricky words too! Tricky words are words we just need to know by heart to help read. This fortnight, we’ve been practising were and has, and we’re already seeing these words pop up in our reading and writing.

Social and emotional learning 

In our recent Wellbeing lessons, Prep students have been learning about recognising and celebrating the personal strengths that make each of us special. Together, we’ve explored qualities like being kind, helpful, patient, brave, and hardworking—and the children have enjoyed noticing and naming these strengths in themselves and others. We’ve also been learning that everyone is different, and that’s something to be celebrated! Through thoughtful discussions and stories, students have practised showing kindness and respect by listening to others and talking about what makes each person unique. It’s been wonderful to see our classroom community grow even stronger through empathy, encouragement, and inclusion.