Foundation Term 3 Week 3

CONNECT WITH PREPS

Learning and Teaching

READING: We are learning to: the children have been exposed to information reports about different aspects of Australia such as the iconic Uluru and the Great Barrier Reef. The children have been encouraged to reflect on their comprehension of the texts and developing knowledge through writing and drawings related to the reading. The children continue to consolidate their understandings of a range of strategies to not only decode unknown words but to gain or maintain meaning when reading. During Guided Reading, the children practise skills applicable to their level of understanding e.g. some children continue to consolidate their sound/letter knowledge whilst other children are learning about the inferences within a text.

WRITING: We are learning to: write informative sentences for information reports. The students have been exposed to report writing related to our unit of study on geography. They have observed the teachers write about our country, state and local area. It has been wonderful to see some children having a go at writing in a similar style. Last week the students met Connie Connective, one of the VCOP  gang characters. Connie encourages students to use connectives such as and, also, then and after to join ideas together in writing to make sentences more interesting to read.

MATHS: We are learning to: sequence the days of the week and relate specific events to particular days e.g. on Fridays we have Kids Café, assembly and library or "I do swimming on a Monday afternoon". The children are consolidating their understanding of morning, noon, afternoon and evening. They are also learning about clocks, how the numbers are evenly spread around the clock face and the function of the minute and hour hands.

INQUIRY: The children have been learning about our local environment and developing an appreciation for where we live. They have drawn and talked about their homes and practised learning their addresses. This week the children have looked at the school environment, walking around the school observing the different features e.g. playgrounds, ovals, chicken coop, the senior building and the main building. They then had a go at transferring their observations onto paper.

Take Home Books:

It is important to continue to listen to your child read their take home books every night. When they are stuck on a word, give them time to work it out and encourage them to do this - look at the first letter, try sounding the word out, miss the word and read on to try and make sense, reread the sentence...
Predicting and then discussing any story is also beneficial to the development of your child's reading and comprehension skills.

Letter and Sound Knowledge:

If your child is having difficulty identifying letters and/or applying the correct sound, please continue to practise at home to develop these essential skills. Playing 'I Spy', Memory, Fish, matching games or other simple phonic games will assist the children to consolidate their understandings.

Walk to Duck Park

As part of our inquiry into our local area, the Prep children will be walking to Duck Park on Wednesday 3rd August at 1:50 pm. We would appreciate the help of several parents from each grade to walk with us - please speak to us if you are interested. This excursion is dependent on the weather being kind to us!

Moorabin Air Museum Visit

Weather permitting the Prep students will be walking to the Moorabin Airport Museum on Monday 8th August at 9 am. We will again require several parents from each grade to accompany us - please let us know if you are able to attend this interesting excursion to one of the unique features of our local area. (We will be guided by the long range forecast issued on the Thursday before the planned excursion as to whether it will go ahead or not.)

Swimming

Great excitement! The swimming program commences on Monday 29th August and runs every school day until Friday 9th September.

The Prep children are required to bring a sturdy swimming bag with their bathers and towel. Please ensure that ALL clothing is named. They can bring goggles (named) and swimming caps (named) however these are not compulsory. 

The Prep children will be leaving school at 1:30 and returning at 3:15.
Prep S's lesson is at 2-2.30pm and Prep B's lesson is at 2.30-3.00 each day. 

Parents are very welcome to meet us at the Don Tatnell Swimming Pool in Warren Road and watch the children swim.

Achievement Awards

Flynn - For concentrating hard to complete his spelling task to the best of his ability.
Kevin - For working hard to learn his numbers to 20 and beyond.

Calendar Dates
August 6th - Trivia Night
August 29th - Swimming Program commences
September 14th & 15th - School Production

Making News

Foundation Term 3 Week 1

CONNECT WITH PREPS

Welcome back to Term 3. It is hard to believe that your children are already half way through their first year at school. Time flies when you're having fun!

Reflecting back on Term 2, there were many highlights including the exciting excursion to Chesterfield Farm. The children also loved caring for their Hairy Harrys and learning about Science. Another highlight which supported the learning in Term 2 was Italian Day when the children had the opportunity to work in multi-age groups and explore some wonderful experiences to heighten their understanding of the Italian culture.

Another huge thankyou to all the parents, grandparents and friends who helped throughout the term. We had great support with helpers listening to the children read their take home books, helping within the classroom with literacy activities, assisting with PMP, attending excursions, working in Kid's Café, attending School Council or other meetings and lending a hand at the Working Bee.

We will again be seeking parental support this term. Your help enriches our school programs for all children. Your assistance is very much appreciated.

Learning and Teaching

READING: We are learning to: develop our understanding of a range of strategies to decode unknown words and gain meaning when reading. These strategies include looking at the initial letter, sounding out a word, breaking a word into chunks, looking for smaller words within a bigger word, looking for known digraphs and trigraphs and rereading a sentence. The children are also further developing their comprehension skills - what was the story about, who were the characters, where or what was the setting? They are also learning to break a narrative into beginning, middle and end and identify the important parts of a story. Some children are also learning to make inferences through questioning and discussion during Guided Reading groups.

WRITING: We are learning to: consolidate our understanding of what a sentence is and how to construct a sentence (capitals, spacing and full stops). Some children are beginning to write more complex sentences, involving conjunctions and greater detail. The children have enjoyed writing recounts about their holidays and sharing their experiences.

MATHS: We are learning to: understand the concept of place value. For example fourteen is recorded as 14, not 41 and is made up of 1 ten and 4 ones, not 4 tens and 1, one. The children continue to consolidate their understandings of counting patterns and automatic recognition of digits, dots on a 10s frame (subitisation) and a collection of objects.

INQUIRY: In Term 3 the Unit of Inquiry focus across the whole school will be geography. We will be focussing developing the students understanding of our local area. They will be describing and explaining the different places in our area and the range of activities that are available to the local community.
The whole school will also be touching on the Olympics with the Prep children focussing on Australia.

MEET AND GREET OUR NEW PRINCIPAL

Parents are welcome to join us in the school hall for tea and coffee on Friday afternoon at 2.15pm to meet our new Principal Renée Kennedy.

We will have assembly in the hall following this at 3pm.  Renée is looking forward to meeting our parent community so we hope to see lots of you there!

School Start Time

Doors will be opened by 8.50am so parents and students can come in if they choose. When the bell rings at 8.55am, parents are asked to leave the corridor and classrooms to allow all students to come inside and prepare for learning time to begin. Students who are not in class when the 9am bell rings are late to school and must report straight to the office for a late pass.

Corey and Zoe
The children have been enjoying having new friends to take home for a sleep over! Corey and Zoe are class bears who have been visiting different children's homes. They are sent on their sleep overs with their own bag with their own treasures including a story book and toothbrush. The idea is for the children to share an evening with the bear and perhaps write about their 'adventures' or bring in a photo of what they have been doing together. A number of children have brought photos of the fun times they have shared with Corey or Zoe and these will shortly be displayed. If a bear hasn't yet made it to your house, it won't be long before they're visiting!

Achievement Awards

Jake S. - For his commitment to his learning and his determination to always make good choices.
Lambros - For trying his best to sound out words and include spaces between his words to write a sentence.

Calendar Dates
July 23rd - Trivia Night
August 29th - Swimming Program commences
September 14th & 15th - School Production

Making News

Foundation Week 10 Term 2

CONNECT WITH PREP

Term 2 Week 10

Learning and Teaching

We are learning to:

READING: The children have been re-visiting the structure of a narrative text. This inspired some children to think about characters, story settings and adventures for their writing. Narratives will remain the reading focus for the remainder of the term.

WRITING: It has been exciting to see some children having a go at writing a narrative or making up their own ending to a story. Other children are working hard to consolidate their sounds and letter knowledge which will assist them to write a sentence.

Please remember all children learn at different rates and have different strengths, please do not compare your child to other children. We encourage the children to have their own learning goals to work towards and to do their very best.

MATHS: The children have enjoyed the challenges of inventing and completing subtraction number stories. They are learning you always end up with less than you started with and you always start off with a bigger number. In maths lessons we have been discussing different strategies we can use to determine the answer to subtraction problems. 

Achievement Awards

Tom O - for working hard to achieve his writing goals.
Charli - for trying hard with all her school work and bouncing back after an upset. Well done Charli!
Lambros - for trying his best to sound out words and include spaces to write a sentence.
Bonnie - for her determination to improve her understanding of letters and sounds.

Calendar

24th June - End of Term (students dismissed at 2:30)

Thankyou
As this is the last Foundation Newsletter for Term 2 we would like to take the opportunity to say thank you for all the wonderful assistance and support we have received throughout Semester 1. Your involvement, whether it be listening to reading, assisting with cooking and supporting our reading program or attending the excursion is greatly appreciated. We hope you all have a wonderful holiday. See you next term!

Making News

Foundation Week 8 Term 2

CONNECT WITH PREP

Term 2 Week 8

Learning and Teaching

We are learning to:

READING: The children have continued to develop their understanding of farm animals and their needs through book browsing factual books, shared reading experiences and viewing information clips.

WRITING: The children have been introduced to the structure of narratives through modelled and shared writing. They are consolidating their understanding that a narrative requires a beginning, middle and end. We have also discussed different settings and interesting characters. Penny Punctuation and Vinny Vocab continue to support children's personal writing.

MATHS: The preps continue to consolidate their subitising, doubles and near doubles skills and their understanding of 'Friends of 10' through daily practice. We are developing our measurement skills in the areas of weight and length. This knowledge has been built through playing with potatoes! (see photos).

Achievement Awards
Scarlett  - For working hard during reading activities and taking care with all of her school work. Well done Scarlett! 
Hunter - For working hard to improve his handwriting and having a go at writing a sentence. Well done Hunter!

Scientist Visit
On Monday James Thomas and his lovely assistant, Bree, (Chloe and Scarlett's parents) captured the children's scientific curiosity and imagination through a range of fascinating scientific demonstrations. These included making elephant toothpaste, a teabag rocket, slime/gloop, layered water (water density), an erupting volcano and an air/water-propelled rocket. The preps were enthralled by James and hopefully he has ignited the hidden scientist within each child.

Calendar
17th June - Whole School Science Celebration Day 2:00 - 3:30
23rd June - Olympics Day
24th June - End of Term (students dismissed at 2:30)



Making News 

  

Foundation Week 6 Term 2

CONNECT WITH PREP

Term 2 Week 6

Learning and Teaching

We are learning to:

READING: We have been looking at factual books and features of an information report. The children have been learning about the differences between narratives which can be imaginative and information reports which are based on factual information.

WRITING: The children have been exposed to report writing specifically related to farm animals. They have also been writing recounts about their experiences at Chesterfield Farm.

MATHS: The children continue to consolidate their understanding of addition and strategies that will enable them to work more efficiently. These strategies include the basic counting all, applying doubles and near doubles, counting on and making to 10.

Achievement Awards
Mina  - For having a go at writing sentences.
Jasmine - For working hard during class and developing the confidence to have a go to write a sentence on her own.

Excursion
The weather was kind to us last Wednesday as we headed off to Chesterfield Farm. We were very proud of all the children as they all displayed wonderful manners and behaviours. So many highlights... Milking Tina, watching Bridget round up the sheep, watching a sheep being shorn, holding baby animals in the nursery, feeding animals in the paddocks and the tractor ride. Stay tuned for a photo display in the reading well. 

Italian Day
So many colourful characters and wonderful costumes... Pinocchio, Luigi, Mario, Pizza People, chefs, gondoliers, gelatos and children dressed in the Italian colours red, white and green. The children thoroughly enjoyed the 4 rotations and the show, ............. was hilarious!!!

Calendar
20th June - Science Celebration Day 9.00-10.30
23rd June - Olympics Day
24th June - End of Term

Making News