Glen Waverley Primary School Prep Newsletter

Foundation - Term 3

Welcome to Term Three, 2021 Prep families. We have certainly started the term with some excitement! The students thoroughly enjoyed their time at the Bundoora Park Farm and wrote very impressive reflections about their experiences. The Prep Team would also like to thank you for the support you have provided to your child’s education during the Learning from Home period. Please view the upcoming learning for preps and note the important dates.

 

Dates this Term:

  • Production Dress rehearsal: 4th August 
  • Production Video Recording: 5th August
  • Incursion: Flying Bookworm 27th  July (to be confirmed)
  • Last day of Term 17th September, finish at 2.30 and free dress.

 

Reading

In Term Three, our literacy focus will be on reading narratives and information reports. We will delve deeper into the difference between fiction and non-fiction texts through various comprehension strategies from the CAFE reading approach including “recognise literary elements”, “use text features” and “determine the author's purpose”. Through reader’s theatre and other narrative texts, students will be introduced to fluency strategies to “show the meaning or feeling of the text in how it is read.”

 

Try these tips at home to support your child’s learning:

  • When reading a text, see if your child can identify if it is fiction (a made-up story) or non-fiction (facts). Discuss how they know.
  • When reading, get your child to change their voices depending on how the character might be feeling. What voice would you make if you were sad? How about if you were happy?

Writing

This term, our writing focus will be on writing narratives and information reports.  We will look at the text features of an information report and how we can make narratives more exciting through using adjectives to describe what is happening. Students will continue to work on spelling their high frequency words and experimenting with the placement of capital letters and full stops. This term students have been given new writing books where they will learn to correctly form their letters on dotted thirds focus on their handwriting.

To support your child at home: 

  • After reading a story, see if your child can change the ending or use one of the characters to verbally tell their own story to help with developing ideas for writing.
  • When practicing writing at home, encourage your child to sound out unfamiliar words and to apply capital letters and full stops appropriately.
  • Encourage your child to read their writing aloud after they are finished to see if it makes sense.

Spelling

Term Three Spelling for Preps is an exciting time, as they will be beginning the process of learning to spell personal words. Students will find words they want to spell that could be any word that challenges them, including Magic Words, words they have misspelt in their writing or words from texts. Additionally, learners will develop their skills in following the Look, Say, Name, Cover, Write, Check (LSNCWC) process to learn the spelling of their words. This will become part of their weekly spelling approach and completed as part of their Home Learning. 

 

To support your child at home:

  • Prompt them to practice LSNCWC daily with their Individual Spelling Words.
  • Remind learners to pack their Home Learning Book for Friday to support the Spelling cycle.

Mathematics

In Term Three, our big Mathematics question is “How are numbers made?” Students will be looking at the different ways numbers are made with a focus on Place Value. We begin looking at this concept by investigating how numbers larger than 10 can be made using groups of tens and ones using concrete materials such as tooth pics, icy pole sticks, Unifix blocks, MAB blocks, ten frames and place value mats. 

 

Other concepts that we will investigate this term include Money, Addition and Subtraction. During the topic on Money, we will investigate what Australian currency looks like. We will be transferring our understanding on Part-Part-Whole for Addition and introduce Subtraction through Whole-Part-Part, which looks at how numbers can be made using other numbers. 

 

To support your child at home:

  • Have your child use materials around the home such as Lego to use as counters or pens and rubber bands to create bundles of ten.
  • Investigate different Australian coins and notes with your child and help them become familiar with what they look like.

Inquiry and You Can Do It!

In Term Three we are inquiring into “How can we all live together.” This unit of learning derived from the Victorian Curriculum learning area: The Arts in particular Drama. This year we are lucky to integrate our school production called “A Journey of Values” where students get the opportunity to showcase and explore our school values of Respect and Global Empathy. They will explore the ways in which we can communicate and appreciate togetherness and differences. 

 

In You Can Do It (YCDI) this term, students investigate our school values of Initiative, Respect and Global Empathy. Students do this through Social and Emotional YCDI Keys to success: 

  • Getting Along, identifying communication skills that enhance relationships.
  • Persistence, explaining strategies that can help them to keep trying.
  • Resilience, recognising actions that lead to feeling successful in their learning.
  • Organisation, demonstrating orderliness with shared resources.
  • Confidence, developing through performing in the school production.

To support your child at home:

  • Keep encouraging your child to persist in difficult or challenging situations, such as lockdowns and Learning from Home.
  • Have conversations about Respect, what it means and how we show it,
  • Make connections with people across the world and discuss the differences between people and cultures with the purpose of building Global Empathy