News from Prep

This is the first of St Bridget’s fortnightly newsletters. We include what’s been happening in the classroom over the last 2 weeks to keep you well informed.

The children have all settled in beautifully, not a tear in sight and lots of learning has already taken place.

To celebrate Chinese New Year, The Year of the Tiger,  we cut out tigers and made a display for our window. 

In Maths, we have sung lots of songs and practised writing the numbers 1 to 5 using the Victorian Modern Cursive script. We are  concentrating on the starting position and formation of each number. We also use the same script when writing letters.

In Literacy, we have already made two of our own books which the children can all ‘read’. Well done to everyone for bringing their readers back to be changed. 

We have learnt about the letters M, S and I and have made monkeys, spiral snakes, igloos and ice-creams. 

We even enjoyed a refreshing Weis ice cream in a cone.

We have been practising writing our names in the correct font. We tore and crumpled strips of crepe paper for the beginning letter of our name. Tearing and crumpling is a good activity for practising our fine motor skills in readiness for writing. 

We have also been discovering how to hold a pencil correctly. Lots of the children have been using ‘butterfly grips’ which encourages the correct finger placement on the pencil.

It would be a good idea to practise writing the children's names using the laminated name card sent home during transition. The starting point and direction of each letter is very important.

Our Inquiry unit is taken from a program called Mappen, which we have been doing as a whole school over the last few years.  This term, the theme ’Community’ runs across the school. As members of a community we need to be able to show respect, listen to and care for each other.

We started with a video called ’Have You Filled a Bucket Today?’Please see the link below if you would like to hear the story.

"Have You Filled a Bucket Today?" read aloud with author Carol McCloud.

Everyone walks around carrying an invisible bucket, even though you can’t see it is there. Your bucket has one purpose only. Its purpose is to hold your good thoughts and good feelings about yourself. You feel happy and fulfilled when your bucket is full and you feel sad and lonely when your bucket is empty.

You can fill a bucket when you show love to someone, when you say or do something kind, or even when you give someone a smile. A bucket filler is a loving, caring person who says and does nice things to make others feel special. When you treat others with kindness and respect, you fill their bucket. We have decorated special ‘buckets’ and when we see or hear someone doing something nice we add an icy pole stick to their bucket. We have collected lots of icy pole sticks!

We have also been discussing ‘What makes a good friend?’

We use ‘Bounceback’ as our Social and Emotional Program. This term, we are focusing on ‘Looking on the Bright Side’. The key message is that it's good to look on the bright side of things. This means being positive and thinking that things will work out well or get better. It also means that if you think good things can happen so you try harder and don’t give up easily.

Mrs Durrant has started Skipping Club for the Preps and Year Ones on a Tuesday at lunchtime. The children don’t need to be able to skip now but by the end of the year they will be masters! It is so much fun and anybody can join or have a try.

The children really enjoyed participating in an “Introduction to Chess’ session. St Bridget’s has a very active chess club with optional group lessons and tournaments.

We hope all of the children have enjoyed their first couple of weeks at St Bridget's.

Kind Regards

Mrs Margaret Maher

Prep Teacher