Classroom News - Kindergarten

English

In English we have continued to learn new Sounds to help with our reading and writing. We have introduced Eric Elephant and Nigel Numbat to our gang. These are two very tricky sounds as they are often confused for others. /E/ is commonly confused for the /i/ sound, as well as the /n/ and /m/ confusion. We have been talking about our articulation in class and thinking about where our tongue is when we make the sounds and what our mouths look like. If you hear your child making these common errors direct them to what your mouth looks like when you say the word.

A fun fact that drove Kindergarten insane this week was that we make the sound /n/ with our nose! If you block your nose you cannot say /n/! Give it a try! 

Home Readers

We are continuing to send home readers every Wednesday. Please return the home reading diary and folder if you wish to change readers or borrow your first! We note what books go home with each student and we use the diary and folder as a way of tracking who has returned what. 

There will be some unknown words in the home readers that we are unable to sound out. Parents should help their children by identifying the tricky words when looking through the book before the first read. This will help your child recognise high frequency words and gain confidence in their reading. 

Big Write

We would like to thank families for supporting their child’s learning by helping them with their Talk Homework. The quick conversations families have been having at home has brought so much life to our writing sessions. We are overflowing with WOW words to add to our VCOP wall, that has helped Kindergarten in their mission to ”ban the boring!”.

Maths

Kindergarten has just wrapped up their unit on patterns. We have been making patterns with our bodies, colours, shapes, pictures and now numbers! Number patterns can be increasing or decreasing. These are tricky words to remember, so if families come across a situation where they could talk about something increasing or decreasing, it would really help their understanding. Some examples may be cakes increasing in size in the oven or ice decreasing as it melts etc. 

We have now started our unit on Fractions. We are looking at halves. Halves are a whole that has been split into two equal parts. We found that to make a piece of paper into halves  we can fold it to make sure it is equal. We have been talking about all the different times that we might use the term half or halves. If you find yourself talking about halves let your child know! Maybe half time of a game, half past the hour, halving food or halving toys. Real life situations are great learning moments, and we love our children coming to school to tell us what they noticed!

Religion

Kindergarten are filled with excitement for our plans to tour the Cathedral. In preparation we have been learning about the different things we would see and things we would do. This week we showed our friends how we can be reverent in the church and what that looks like. Kindergarten is so ready for our trip! We are also itching for Week 10 where we get our own Mass! How lucky are we! 

Science

Holy moly we are filled with such creative minds! Last week we turned our design plans into reality, with the help of our parents recycled items and a lot of sticky tape. The brief: to protect a teddy bear from the weather. The results: Teddy Bears protected from the sun, wind, rain and snow in the most inventive ways! 

Now don’t get excited about continuing your usual recycling habits... We are planning another designing session in Week 10 and your child will need any cardboard, paper or plastic recycled items to help them build their creation. We will provide paper, sticky tape, string, glue, and there is no need to purchase items for these sessions. 

We are learning about the weather in Science, and this week we were focusing on the different seasons. This is always a tricky topic, knowing what the weather is like, and what it looks like in each season. We have had lots of relevant conversations about the weather in Winter this week with the cold and snow. We will continue to develop Kindergarten’s knowledge of the seasons as the year progresses. 

Athletics Carnival

Last week Kindergarten attended their first Athletics Carnival. We had so much fun in our races and rotation games. Thank you to those parents who helped out on the day, you helped the day run very smoothly. Thank you also to the parents who came to spectate. We appreciate your patience on the day and your support of your child. We hope everyone had as much fun as the teachers!

Buddies

Last week Kindergarten were officially paired with a Year 6 buddy! Our Kindergartener’s were read to by their buddies, then the bubbles came out which brought joy to the young and the slightly less young. No party is complete without a conga  line, so of course we found our buddies and danced our way around the playground. We are always so excited for Wednesday lunchtime when our buddies come to eat with us. It has been so heartwarming to see our little faces light up when we see our buddy in the school. We are so lucky!

A special thank you goes to the Year 6 teachers, Mrs Walters and Mr Garraud for providing the books, bubbles and laughs.