News from Prep

The highlight recently was Pancake Day (Shrove Tuesday). Pancakes are associated with Shrove Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday, because traditionally, Christians would give up rich, tasty foods such as butter, eggs, milk and sugar, before the fasting season of Lent. Shrove Tuesday was the last chance to eat them and what better way to do so than with a delicious pancake!

In Literacy, we have been learning about the letters Ss, Nn, Pp, Hh. We painted wonderful sunflowers and used bubble wrap to print the centres. They look so effective in our farm scene together with the corn, pumpkins and pigs.

We added pigs and pumpkins to this and tasted delicious pumpkin soup for Pp.

For the letter Nn, we made very snazzy ‘noodle necklaces’, I am sure you were very impressed. It took a lot of fine motor control to thread these along with the beads.

We have begun blending in words, primarily with the middle vowel ‘a’. We have made-ap , -am and -at words. It would be beneficial to practise sounding out these words with your child. For example:

-ap: cap, map, gap and tap

-am: ham, ram, jam and dam

-at: cat, bat, sat, hat, mat, fat and rat

Our Reading Eggs program consolidates and practises these words. You can login to this program at home if you like. Please see me for your child's login details or when you drop off in the morning, you can take a photo of all their login details which are stuck onto the top of their laptops.

In Maths, we have been practising recognising and writing numbers 11-20. It would be good to practise counting forwards and backwards to and from 20. We introduced ‘addition’ in the last few weeks. Initially we have been doing lots of hands on practical activities of  joining two groups together but have also introduced the ‘+’ (plus) and ‘=’ (equals) sign. We are practising using the ‘count on’ method. This means that when adding two groups, you start with the biggest number and put that in your head and then you just have to count on the next number (without recounting from one). For example: 7+2  you put 7 in your head and say 7, then 8, 9. You don't need to recount from one each time.

For Inquiry, we explored the Habit of Mind: Persisting. We practised persisting by attempting to do exercises that cross the midline. Click on the following link to read about the importance and benefits of children being able to cross this midline

We followed instructions such as:

1. Cross your arms and touch your knees
2. Cross your arms and touch your hips
3. Cross your arms and touch your shoulders
4. Cross your arms and touch your ears

After each step we prompted the students to relax their bodies and shake out their hands.

Watch this video to see how we cross the midline.

We also provided each child with a scarf to practise crossing this midline. They found this very tricky but persisted with this challenge. See the video  below. 

Check out our first Assembly. Now that restrictions have eased, Assembly will run every Monday from 3.00pm-3.30pm. Everyone is welcome to attend. The children and their buddies have introduced themselves and presented some work that they have been doing.

Recently, we went to  the Kew Traffic School where we learnt about road safety and the importance of wearing helmets correctly when riding our bikes and scooters; holding a grown up’s hand when walking; and wearing a seatbelt when travelling in cars.

We all had a fabulous time. Here are some of the children's comments.

Finn: I had fun. I loved riding my bike.

Lucy: I liked it because I was the rider of the day and I enjoyed the bus ride.

Oscar: I liked going on the bicycles and scooters and being careful of people and traffic.

Anthony: I liked going on the scooters.

Saskia: I liked riding the bikes and learning about safety.

Evie: It was pretty good. I liked being the Lollipop girl.

Lucas: I liked riding on the bike. I also liked eating my snack.

Juliette: I liked doing the Lollipop lady and I liked stopping and knowing where I’m going.

Summer: It was so fun. I liked pressing the buttons, being the Lollipop lady and I also liked scooting.

Kind Regards

Mrs Margaret Maher

Prep Teacher