Argus-Xenica Community Report

Welcome to The Argus-Xenica Community Newsletter, we are now at the stage of which children have gained a sense of schedule and have now fully adapted to the ways of primary school. We have also seen substantial progress in most of the children at all areas of the curriculum and in their social, emotional development during this term. We have partaken in several incursions and have observed great amount of development and enthusiasm of the students. 

Reading

In Reading, we have introduced CVC words. CVC words are 3-letter words in the formation of a consonant, vowel, consonant. Words include Rat, Fit, Dog, But and Let. We have seen abundant success and commend the students on how well they have managed to grasp this topic. We have also started to work on letter-sound association, in which we teach students the sound/sounds a letter can make. We have incorporated multiple tactics to help consolidate these links, in which we rely on things like flash cards, verbal quizzing and memory snap to help fuse students to this topic. This will then help students sound out several words at once and eventually be able to identify words. We have also included decodable books into our sessions, so students can subconsciously build on the following topics whilst enjoying the pleasant stories our books have to offer. 

Writing

We have continued our work on fine motor skills, incorporating activities such as beading, threading, and using tweezers. This will help build on the student’s ability to grip a pencil and eventually be able to write with fluency as well as efficiency. Due to the fast progress of students, we have now begun to do various tracing and colouring activities to help enhance the writing skill of students. We have seen substantial progress but aspire to consolidate on this furthermore. We have also started to work on the scissor using ability of students. We have cautiously progressed throughout the term and have seen great progress in all students. We have brought over CVC words into writing as well, concentrating on the images and formation of them. We have introduced various cut and paste activities for students to indulge in, as well as some sand and magnetic word related activities. These activities will help establish the text-to-image connection as well as the formation and letters that words compose of. 

Maths

In Math, we are currently learning how to count and how to collect terms. We are using many manipulatives to consolidate students understanding including unifix blocks, counters and dice. We have seen great progress in learning and have observed a great difference between the start of the unit and now. We are also working on data collection, currently via Yes and No questions. Students are told to ask their peers various Yes or No questions and record the data in their books. The next step will include making picture graphs and scientifically representing data via graphs. 

Inquiry

Incursion: Students are learning about our community helpers/emergency services in Inquiry. To make them understand how our community helpers help our community, they participated in St John Ambulance Incursion and Lifesaver Incursion. Students were encouraged to share their prior knowledge during the incursions and were given the opportunity to enhance their knowledge about the importance of community helpers and how they support us during various emergencies.

To extend on student’s interest and knowledge, we provided the student with an opportunity to explore through role play in a paramedics set up. Students were participating in a play with their peers using fake medical equipment.

Community Assembly: To make our students familiarize with the concept of assembly, we are encouraging our students to participate in our community assembly in which the prep students practice National Anthem, Acknowledgement of country and to aim for the student of the week award.

House Spirit Activity

Conclusion 

As we near the end of the term, we look back to see the great leap in academic progress as well as confidence of our students. We are very proud of their development and hope that we can furthermore advance their learning in both an educational and social manner. We would also like to thank parents who have supported their children as helping them at home makes it much more likely for them to understand and excel in the content. To conclude, we hope our students enjoy their term break and come back energised, enthusiastic and ready to learn!