Term 4 Week 1

Hello,

Welcome back to term 4. We hope that everyone is feeling rested after the break. It has been lovely to have some warmer weather for our walks.

We are looking forward to seeing the Preps in person next week. Steve will provide an update on Compass this week as to the guidelines that we will need to observe.

Codes

This week we are introducing two new codes ‘ew’ and ‘ui’. Both codes make the same two sounds ‘ew’, as in 'grew' and 'new' and ‘ui’, as in 'fruit' and 'nuisance'.

This week we will continue with the two rules that we learnt at the end of term 3 for boot camp - c WILL say it’s second sound ‘s’ if the next letter is e, i or y’, and - g MAY say its second sound /j/ if the next letter is e, i or y. On Monday – Thursday students will revise these rules using the reading tools process, watching the teacher role model decoding a word and then decoding three words by themselves. On Friday students will be given an informal test. This will enable us to see who needs further consolidation of the rules.

Literacy

This week in literacy we will begin by revisiting the story of Gentle Cindy and Giant Cedric as our bootcamp focus for the week is revising when 'c' and 'g' make their second sound. We will also continue our focus on characters in narrative stories. We will be using a simple picture story book as a stimulus to try and come up with different words to describe a character. We want to encourage them to think beyond more basic words to describe emotions and think about just because a character acts a certain way does that really make them a certain type of person. We will then be looking at how characters are similar to other characters, themselves and other people.

We will continue practising reading and writing high frequency words, these words are embedded in all reading and writing and the more confident children are in using them, the easier reading and writing becomes. There will also be an activity to reinforce the two new codes introduced this week, 'ew' and 'ui'.

If your child is interested in writing or finishes their tasks early, they may like to write about what they did during the holidays. This will be a recount writing piece. They will need to ensure they have a capital letter at the beginning of each sentence, a full stop at the end and that the events are sequenced in order of when they happened.

Numeracy

This week the preps will be revisiting graphing and data. They will get the opportunity to look at data sets and translate that information into a graph. They will then analyse the graph by responding to questions. By constructing and interpreting graphs the preps are provided an opportunity to count and compare sets of objects.

In Maths number, the Preps will look at ordering non-consecutive numbers (numbers not in a known pattern e.g. 2, 4, 6). They will have to use their understanding of the place value of numbers to help them order and count numbers from smallest to largest.

Unit of Inquiry

We will begin this week with reinforcing some of the terminology used in this unit of inquiry. For example, what does the word 'cycle' mean? We will also be examining the components of a flow chart to demonstrate a cycle and what the different parts show.

We will inquire into the the life cycle of different plants. The central idea of the unit of inquiry is 'Cycles are a part of the natural world' and so we want to be sure that the Preps can recognise cycles beyond those of the frog and butterfly.

The PYP learner profile is a group of attributes that we would want all learners to demonstrate. The children who receive a certificate at assembly do so for demonstrating one of the learner profile attributes. Each unit of inquiry is an opportunity for us to further develop some learner profile attributes. For this unit of inquiry the attributes are Communicators and Knowledgeable. We will be focusing on these as well this week with the goal of having the language embedded in the Preps' vocabulary.

More information about the PYP learner profile can be found in the attached document.

Well being

Our Preps have managed very well with the extended period of home learning. Having said that we are expecting that they will have mixed emotions about returning to school. On the one hand they are probably very excited about seeing their friends, playing on the play equipment and kicking a ball on the junior oval. On the other hand they may be apprehensive. It has been a long time since they have been at school and then it was only for 5 weeks. Term 1 is a very long time ago so they don't have strong memories of being at school and may be unsure about routines and expectations. If this is the case for your child please reassure them that their teacher will be doing lots of reminding and going over things when we get back. It may also be helpful for you to transition your child back into school this week. For example, having them wear their school uniform and timetable the day with food breaks at the usual recess and lunch times. We usually eat play lunch at about 10:30am and lunch at about 12:35pm.

The Prep team

0A - Kathryn Morrison

kathryn.morrison@education.vic.gov.au

0B - Deb Barden

deborah.barden@education.vic.gov.au

0C - Danielle Palombi

danielle.palombi@education.vic.gov.au

0D - Julie Daniel

julie.daniel@education.vic.gov.au

HU - Krystle Horadam

krystle.horadam@education.vic.gov.au

Prep Fortnightly Snapshot

Issue 19 · 04 Oct 2020

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