Hello,

Swimming

Thank you for your assistance with the swimming program. We appreciate how quickly you got everything organised. It was great to see the progress the Preps made over the six days.

We still have a few pieces of clothing missing. We are hoping that some of you will have found some things over the weekend that don't belong to you and we can match them to owners this week. If you are missing anything, we have some lost property that has been moved to the lost property cupboards near the Uniform Shop.

Take home books

It has been great to see the Preps get back into their home reading routines. Many of the Preps are showing their independence and writing the title of the book they read in their planner themselves. This is great to see.

If you come across any books with a coloured dot on the back, can you please send them back with your child's other books. Thank you.

Word Study

We have introduced two new codes 'kn' (2 letter n at the start of a word) e.g. knife, knee and 'gn' (2 letter n at the start or end of a word) e.g. gnaw and sign. Over the next few weeks our Preps will be learning the FSZL gang rule, using the spelling tools process e.g. words such as fluff, boss, buzz, fill. The things to remember for this rule are we usually double f,s,z, and l if they come after a single vowel and are at the end of a one syllable word.

Literacy

Earlier in the year we focused on books being categorised into fiction and non-fiction and the features of these. Now we have started learning about different types of fiction books through the genres of realistic fiction and fantasy fiction. Over the last few weeks we have had realistic fiction books as our mentor texts ‘We’re all Wonders’ by R.J. Palacio and ‘Wilfred Gordon McDonald Partridge’ by Mem Fox. Next week we are going to look at fairy tales as fantasy fiction texts.

Students have also been learning how to give a retell on fiction books. Retells give the main information (summarise) in the correct order. Beginning – mention the main characters and setting. Middle – the problem in the story. End – the solution (how the problem was solved).

The Preps are also completing a variety of assessment tasks to see where they are at with their understanding of literacy.

Numeracy

We have been finding out about the area of Chance which leads into the study of Probability. We were considering the difference between 'fair' and 'not fair' games. Fair games are games of skill that give all the players the same chance such as, chess. Not fair games are games of luck that involve the throw of dice or cards. As part of our learning about Chance we have been considering the chance of different events occurring using 'will, might or won't' happen.

Our next focus is Pattern. In Prep we make patterns using objects. This will develop into learning about skip counting patterns in year 1. We will start with simple patterns such as red/green repeating to more complex patterns such as red/green/green/blue.

Unit of Inquiry

The Preps have been learning about our new unit of inquiry, How We Express Ourselves. We have been exploring how creativity can be expressed and appreciated. The Preps have been discussing what creativity is and how we determine if something is creative or not. We have been exposing the students to different forms of creative expression and they have been creative in the Inquiry hall through different experiences such as painting, crafting, using musical instruments, dressing up in costumes and building.

The Prep team

0A - Kathryn Morrison

kathryn.morrison@education.vic.gov.au

0B - Isabella Maresca

isabella.maresca@education.vic.gov.au

0C - Deb Barden

deborah.barden@education.vic.gov.au

0D - Danielle Palombi

danielle.palombi@education.vic.gov.au

0E - Julie Daniel

julie.daniel@education.vic.gov.au

ToD (Teacher of the Deaf) - Krystle Horadam

krystle.horadam@education.vic.gov.au

Prep Fortnightly Snapshot

Issue 8 · 15 Nov 2021

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