KINDERGARTEN
Grade Bulletin - Term One, 2023
Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Primary School provides a range of holistic learning experiences to enable students to:
- Participate in the life and mission of the school.
- Deepen their knowledge and engagement with the Catholic faith and tradition.
- Build capacity to continuously reason, reflectively, logically and critically.
- Embrace interdependence of human existence as global citizens, who are responsible to and for themselves and others.
- Engage in learning in a multitude of ways, through personalised and self-paced learning.
Religious Education
K.1 Welcome
This unit establishes simple prayer routines with a focus on the Sign of the Cross, key symbols and religious objects in the school and parish environment. The unit introduces sacred space, a prayer place and the importance of time to pray. Through the use of the Christ candle, children are introduced to the image of Jesus, as the light of the world. The foundational image of Jesus as the Good Shepherd is also presented through the Gospel story.
K.2 Lent and Holy Week
This unit presents the stories of ‘The Lost Sheep’, ‘The Washing of the Feet’ and ‘The Last Supper’. Through these stories, and in keeping with the season of Lent and Holy Week, the students are introduced to Jesus and learn of his love for us.
English
We will be implementing the new NSW K-2 English syllabus.
Reading fluency and Reading comprehension:
The students will be developing skills and strategies to read words automatically and recognise the need to stop at the end of a sentence in response to a full stop. Students will learn to recall details of texts and identify words that represent who, what, when, where and why. The children will be encouraged to use background knowledge when identifying connections between a text, own life, other texts and/or the world.
Creating written texts:
The children will practise recording sounds that we hear in words as well as writing out high frequency words. We are emphasising writing left to right across the page, leaving spaces in between words and understanding the use of capital letters and full stops in a sentence. Students will write daily daily using draw, talk, write, share to help build confidence and proficiency.
Handwriting:
This term, students will focus on writing letters of the alphabet using a stable posture when handwriting or drawing by sitting with feet flat on the floor, the writing arm resting on a table, with the opposite hand resting on the paper and shoulders relaxed. They will trace fluency patterns and track letters to assist their fine motor skills required in writing.
Spelling and Phonemic awareness:
The students will be introduced to the ‘Sound Waves Spelling' Program. Sound Waves is a word study program designed to develop reading, spelling and writing skills through phonemic awareness. Phonemic awareness is essentially a knowledge and understanding of the sounds and sound patterns of our language. The children will be introduced to the letter sounds of consonants, long and short vowels and some digraphs. They will be blending sounds to make small words.
Mathematics
In the first term of Kindergarten students are introduced to early mathematical concepts from the new NSW K-2 syllabus. Students will copy, continue, create and recognise patterns and name the number of objects within small collections. They will explore 3D objects and sort, describe and name familiar 2D shapes. Students will learn how to compare different lengths and respond to questions to collect data. They will separate and combine groups using concrete materials to model addition and subtraction. Students will learn to name and order the days of the week and to describe and order the duration of events.
Science and Technology
In the ‘What’s it made of?’ program, the children will inquire about and explore the observable properties of various materials and why the properties of materials affect their use. They will begin to explore the design process.
Mandarin
This year students in Kindergarten to Year 6 will participate in the Chinese language program called the Meg Language Program. The Meg Curriculum is written by the co-author of the Australian Curriculum. All students and teachers will participate in the digital learning platform via Zoom weekly sessions with educators in China.
Geography
The children will participate in a unit titled, ‘People Live in Places.’ This unit provides opportunities for students to explore places they live in and belong to.
Amadeus Music Program
This year students from all grades will be involved in the Amadeus Music Education program, introduced by Sydney Catholic Schools providing students with a high quality music education program. The program offers students expert classroom music lessons, ensemble lessons, and for primary students group tuition.
Students will participate in activities in listening, performing and organising sound (Kindergarten to Year 6), within their regular Classroom Music lessons. Within these lessons, students will:
- Sing in unison and in parts
- Play tuned and untuned percussion instruments
- Play available instruments such as Ukulele, Guitar and Keyboard (Grade appropriate)
Creative Arts
Creative Arts will occur for 90 minutes per week incorporating Music, Visual Arts and Drama. The Creative Arts program will link to our Literacy program as students explore and build an understanding of texts through various creative media.
Personal Development, Health and Physical Education
A new program titled ‘Open Parachute’ will be implemented in K - 6. Open Parachute aims to provide practical support on mental health to students. The program aims to reduce stigma and generate authentic dialogue in classrooms about the real issues students face. The psychological skill-building exercises aim to increase empathy, self-compassion, self-awareness, mental health literacy, and self-efficacy in students.
All Kindergarten classes will participate in Physical Education. This will involve sporting games and activities focusing on their gross motor and fundamental movement skills. Gross motor skills refer to the movements of the large muscles in the body. In addition, we will be commencing ‘The Gross Motor Program’ on a Thursday morning from Week 5. There will be more information sent home later in the term.
Homework
Kindergarten will begin homework in the coming weeks. This will consist of a list of the Term 1 sight words and a counting program designed to build fluency with number recall and formation. More details will be sent home to explain this closer to the date.
We look forward to working with you and your child this term. If you have any concerns, please do not hesitate to contact your child’s teacher via a note or by appointment at the office.
Miss Melissa Flynn and Miss Holly Pooley (KBlue)
Miss Hayley Wilson (KGold)
Mrs Tracey Carnegie and Mrs Danielle Suttor (KWhite)
Important Dates for Year Kindergarten
Sport Days for Kindergarten are as follows:
KBlue - Wednesday and Thursday
KGold - Wednesday and Thursday
KWhite -Wednesday and Thursday
Students are to wear their sports uniform on these days.
Library
Each week, students will have the opportunity to borrow books from our school library. Please ensure your child brings their Library Bag to school each Wednesday.
KBlue - Wednesday
KGold - Wednesday
KWhite- Wednesday
School Term - Friday 27th January - Thursday, 6th April 2023