Term 2 Week 8

Thank you all very much for your efforts to meet social-distance guidelines during drop off and pick up times. It has been lovely to see the enthusiasm with which the Preps (and their teachers) have returned to school.

The teachers are busy working with your child to determine where they are at with their learning so we can ensure that we are catering for their learning needs. We thank you for your patience while we do that.

Literacy

Reading

As mentioned in the last iNewsletter, the Preps have now been introduced to all the alphabet sounds and have moved onto digraphs and blends. Digraphs are two letters that make one sound e.g. 'th', 'sh' and blends are letters that are pronounced individually, but quickly, so they 'blend' together and are usually consonants. Learning the digraph and blend codes will help students to chunk words when sounding out unfamiliar words rather than sounding out every letter.

We were so impressed with how hard the Preps practised their codes during home learning and have noticed a big improvement in how confident they are with these now. We are therefore going to continue to film ourselves teaching these and upload the videos onto Seesaw. Students can then keep practising them at home and it may also assist you in knowing what sounds we have focused on.

Last week (week 7) our focus was 'th' which has two sounds. The first is unvoiced as you would say in words such as 'than and 'bath' and the second sound is voiced as you would say in words such as 'that', 'there' and 'them'. This week (week 8) we will be focusing on the codes 'ow' and 'ou'. 'Ow' makes two sounds e.g. 'how' and 'low', we give the cue 'flowers grow'. For 'ou' the cue is it is 'ow's' cousin and a show off because it has four sounds e.g. 'round', 'canteloupe', 'you' and 'cousin'.

We are continuing to focus on nonfiction texts and their features and students will be reading them and discussing these texts in small groups during Guided Reading sessions.

Writing

In writing this week we are continuing our focus on Information Reports. We are working on identifying words for the glossary, how to read text and identify which words are important and need an explanation to add meaning to the text. We are also looking at which words need to be included in the index. We are looking at labelled diagrams and how a visual image with labels can add meaning to written text. To build on the level of detail in the children's writing we are introducing adjectives. Children will label a diagram of themselves including physical and personality traits with adjectives, such as colour or length for hair and will then include adjectives in a description of a community worker.

Numeracy

One of the things that we observed last week was how much more familiar the Preps have become with numbers from 20-100. This is great progress for this stage of the year.

In Number, we will be focusing on odd and even numbers. We address it from the perspective of even numbers have even pairs and odd numbers have one left over or an odd one out. This helps our Preps to see the patterns in numbers which contributes to success in Number in the years ahead. For those students who are ready, this will be extended to skip counting by 2s.

Last week we focused on the language of position which includes words like 'up', 'between' and 'through'. Developing the language associated with mathematical concepts is an important part of Prep.

This week we will be focusing on direction and adding in 'forwards', 'backwards', 'turn' and 'right' and 'left'. Those that are ready for a challenge will be encouraged to include 'clockwise' and 'anti-clockwise'.

A reminder that even though home learning has finished, Mathletics is still available to you. Some children like to use the Live Mathletics to practise their automatic response and others like to complete the tasks that reinforce what we have been doing in the classroom.

Unit of Inquiry

The Preps looked very excited to get into the inquiry hall last week. Last Monday we set it up and it includes an airport, school, post office, vets, construction site and supermarket. We have left out some of the things we have done in the past as we felt that they posed a risk to having the Preps put things near their faces. They wash their hands before going out there and before returning to the classroom.

In the coming weeks, the Preps will be developing their ability to sort and classify objects. For example, if they had a collection of pictures of community helpers, they might sort them into a group of people wearing uniforms and a group of people not wearing uniforms. We want them to be able to recognise similarities and differences. They will be considering the similarities and differences in the communities that they are part of.

Wellbeing

The Preps have adjusted so well back into the classroom. We noticed how much they loved seeing their classmates and it has been lovely watching them while on yard duty interact with each other and play in the playground. They may be finding the days long again and you may find they get tired in the afternoon as they readjust back into full school days. We hope you have also managed to get back into some type of normality now the Preps - 2s are back at school.

The Prep team

0A - Kathryn Morrison

morrison.kathryn.j@edumail.vic.gov.au

0B - Deb Barden

barden.deborah.j@edumail.vic.gov.au

0C - Danielle Palombi

palombi.danielle.d@edumail.vic.gov.au

0D - Julie Daniel

daniel.julie.e@edumail.vic.gov.au

HU - Krystle Horadam

horadam.krystle.k@edumail.vic.gov.au

Prep Fortnightly Snapshot

Issue 8 · 31 May 2020

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