Home learning - Term 2 Week 6

Welcome to W6 and our last week of home learning. From the bottom of our hearts we thank you for all you have done to support your child's home learning. We hope that you have enjoyed the insight into your child as a learner and have developed a greater understanding of our Prep program, albeit a modified one.

Reminders for this week:

Friday - will be a day of celebration and reflection. For our Google Meet on Friday your child may like to bring along some party food, a treat or a party hat to celebrate.

Literacy

Reading

We will continue to work with the Write2Read cards this week, adding in the codes sh and ee. We have now introduced all of the individual codes and will begin looking at blends. It may be a new concept to your child to blend sounds together so daily practise will be beneficial.

When reading at home, encourage your child to chunk the new codes that they have learnt. For example; sounding out the word ship, break the word down into sh-i-p (not sounding out the s and h as separate sounds). Epic books will be assigned throughout the week to support regular reading at home.

We have also been exploring the features of nonfiction texts. This week we will continue to look at additional features such as; labels, bold words and glossaries. Being able to identify text features allows your child to distinguish between fiction and nonfiction texts and will support their understanding of the author’s purpose.

Writing

To practice and consolidate skills learnt last week, students will be continuing to focus on writing information reports as a booklet this week. They will be using the same features of heading (title), subheadings, factual sentences and labelled diagrams. This week the information report will be on a community helper of their choice. The children will be able to use a slide with links to eight different YouTube clips of community helpers to access information. If they have a particular interest and you are happy to assist them in gathering the facts they need, they are welcome to choose an alternate community helper. Extracting relevant information from sources can be extremely tricky for children. If your child is having difficulty please encourage them to use ideas shared in the teacher example.

Numeracy

This week we are continuing with addition and the strategy of counting on. Students need to put the biggest number in their head and count on from that number. e.g. 23 and 5 - students put the number 23 in their head and then count on 5 more - 24, 25, 26, 27, 28. Initially students need concrete materials to help them to count on such as dots on a dice, playing cards, fingers, counters and number lines. This helps them to keep track of the amount to count on and know when to stop. When students initially practise this strategy it is important to notice if the count the number in their head as the first number e.g. they would say 23 and 5 - 23, 24, 25, 26, 27 and therefore their answer will be incorrect. For students to have success with this strategy it is important they practise with numbers they are confident in so they don't have to focus on counting and counting on.

We will also be continuing our work with 2D shapes this week. This week we will move towards the features of shapes e.g. sides and corners. Initially we will look at what is a straight and curved line, then start describing shapes according to how many sides and corners they have.

There is a lot of vocabulary that goes with shape and includes words such as, straight, curved, sides, corners and then the names of the different shapes. Please encourage your child to use this terminology as it will become easier for them to remember it if they do.

If your child is wanting to clarify Maths terminology, the following is a great website. www.amathsdictionaryforkids.com/

Unit of Inquiry

This week we are continuing our unit of inquiry exploring the purpose of communities and the different roles people have within them.

A focus this week will be on generating questions that will guide our inquiry when we return to school. Students have focused on the different between a question and a statement. The next step is to work on the questions they ask. We will be talking about open and closed questions. Closed questions have one answer that is usually one word. Open questions require several words to explain the answer and may have more than one answer.

The Preps will be having the opportunity to take on some different roles this week.

Optional activities

In the last column of the weekly learning plan you will find some optional activities. There is no expectation that they are completed. They are there to support the 'I'm bored' children.

Wellbeing

Just as transitioning into our Home Learning program caused some of us to be a little anxious, so will transitioning back to the classroom. Students may be excited to see friends but be worried about what is going to change. Students may also regress with separating from you in the morning, especially if you have older siblings at home. If this is the case, just like at the start of the year, we suggest you stay calm and positive and once you hand over your child, move away quickly so we can settle them.

Although many of the processes such as pick up and drop off and still being finalised by Steve, we will inform you before the 26th May any changes we need to put in place for safety reasons. However, if you have any questions from you or your child about things you have either concerns about or just want some clarification on, please get in touch with your teacher throughout this week and when we commence back in the classroom.

Yogabean

Our school has had a great working relationship with Yogabean for several years now in order to promote self-care and mindfulness. Alex from Yogabean has kindly prepared a series of yoga and mindfulness videos for us to share with you free of charge, to support your child's home learning.

Yogabean mindfulness - A very simple technique to do whenever you like, helping to get into the body and present moment

Yogabean Fitness - Quick 10 minute session to wake up the muscles and the mind

The Prep team

0A - Kathryn Morrison

morrison.kathryn.j@edumail.vic.gov.au

0B - Deb Barden

barden.deborah.j@edumail.vic.gov.au

0C - Danielle Palombi

palombi.danielle.d@edumail.vic.gov.au

0D - Julie Daniel

daniel.julie.e@edumail.vic.gov.au

HU - Krystle Horadam

horadam.krystle.k@edumail.vic.gov.au

Prep Fortnightly Snapshot

Issue 7 · 17 May 2020

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