Prep T4 W4 & 5

Term 4 Weeks 4 and 5

Hello,

Thank you for your efforts with outfits for Book Week. It was lovely to see the excited looks on the Preps' faces.

Home reading

The Prep teachers are currently working through their classes assessing reading. As you can imagine, this takes time as it needs to be done one-on-one and so we appreciate your patience. We are determining each child’s instructional level and easy level. The instructional level has a degree of challenge and is what we use at school to teach reading skills. The easy level is the book that they bring home and is an opportunity for your child to develop their fluency and practise reading with intonation and expression. 

One of the key things that we look at when we are assessing reading is whether the child can read the text independently or not. If we need to help a child with a word then it is counted as an error. This happens each time they ask for help or we need to provide it because the child has come to a standstill.

The other skill that we focus on is whether the child is self-correcting. This means that they notice that what they read didn’t make sense and they go back and re-read the sentence to correct the error. Good readers do this without prompting. If your child is not doing this, the best thing that you can do is wait until they get to the end of the sentence and ask them whether what they just read made sense. Then encourage them to see if they can work out what didn’t sound right themselves. If your child is self-correcting, you may like to acknowledge their efforts and remind them that it is a strategy that good readers use.

Word study

For the rest of the year we will be consolidating all the codes we have learnt so far, practising to read them or code match (which is to write the code to match the sound/s given).

Over the next few weeks we will Bootcamp Silent Final E – job 1. This is when there is a silent e at the end of a word, although it is silent it makes the vowel say it’s second sound e.g. make, Pete, mine, vote, tune. We will use the Reading Tool process to practise this rule. We will also be using the Spelling Tool process to practise writing the ‘er’, ‘ir’ and ‘ur’ words.

Reading

Over the last few weeks the Preps have been focusing on nonfiction texts, their features and how to use these features to find key information e.g. content pages, glossaries, diagrams. Next week as our Unit of Inquiry changes we will also change our text focus to fiction texts. Initially we will look at the purpose and features of fiction texts and the different types of fiction texts e.g. fairy tales, adventure, science fiction, poetry.

Writing

We are continuing to use our science experiments as a stimulus for writing during this week. We are recording our observations of our bean seed's growth and writing about our predications and the results of our magnets experiments. We will also be creating flowcharts and adding in descriptions about what is occuring at different stages of cycles.

Next week we begin our new Unit of Inquiry into 'Creativity can be expressed and appreciated'. We will begin this unit by looking at different genres of writing and discuss their purpose. 

Numeracy

This week in maths, the preps will be introduced to the concept of sharing. They will be exploring dividing amounts evenly amongst objects or people. They will inquire into real life examples of sharing through hands on activities, worded problems and collaborative games. 

The Preps will also consolidate their understanding of the days of the week. We will be practising ordering the days of the week from any starting point. To extend students, we will also be ordering the months of the year and looking at which season they fall in to.

Unit of Inquiry

This week is the final week of our current unit of inquiry ‘Cycles are a part of the natural world’. Our Preps will continue to inquire into cycles in nature such as the seasons and the day/night cycle. They will also be developing their understanding of the difference between man-made and natural/in nature. This week they will be completing their summative assessment task which is to create a flow chart of the cycle of their choice. The flowchart will be accompanied by a written piece explaining about the cycle.

In week 5 we will be commencing our final unit of inquiry for the year. It is under the transdisciplinary theme of ‘How We Express Ourselves’ and has the central idea of ‘Creativity can be expressed and appreciated’. The Preps will be exploring different ways of being creative. They will also be developing their vocabulary of words to describe how artworks make them feel. Another skill they will be developing is their ability to provide an opinion about something creative and to give a reason for that opinion.

Well being

We continue to be impressed by the Preps and the way they are transitioning back to the classroom. We would like to take this opportunity to thank you for adhering to the guidelines for drop offs and pick ups. We would also like to thank the parents who are ensuring that their child is getting plenty of sleep to help them with the adjustment. The difference it is making to their concentration and resilience is quite noticeable.

The Prep team

0A - Kathryn Morrison

kathryn.morrison@education.vic.gov.au

0B - Deb Barden

deborah.barden@education.vic.gov.au

0C - Danielle Palombi

danielle.palombi@education.vic.gov.au

0D - Julie Daniel

julie.daniel@education.vic.gov.au

HU - Krystle Horadam

krystle.horadam@education.vic.gov.au