Little Learners - Semester One

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And just like that, we have completed the first semester of Prep!

Over the past week, our Little Learners have been excited to learn about the letters and sounds of L and U. Students practiced identifying, writing, and sounding out these letters through fun activities, stories, and songs. It’s been wonderful to watch their confidence grow as they become more familiar with the building blocks of reading and writing.

In Math this week, we introduced the new focus text One is a Snail, Ten is a Crab, which helped our Little Learners explore the concept of addition. This creative and engaging story has been a fantastic way to introduce early addition in a meaningful context.

Looking Ahead to Week 10, we will continue building on our understanding of addition by creating and solving our own addition sums. In Literacy, Prep will be introduced to the letters and sounds of B and J, as well as the new ‘Tricky Words’; look, one, his, and here.

We’re also excited to share that in Term 3, we will begin Literacy Rotations—a daily, structured time that supports targeted reading and writing practice. During these sessions, we would greatly appreciate the support of parent helpers. If you are available to assist from 9-9:30am, please let me know. Your involvement can make a big difference in supporting student learning.

Thank you for your continued support as we wrap up a wonderful first term. We are so proud of all that Little Learners have achieved so far and can’t wait to see what the rest of the year brings!

Dear Parents and Carers,

We’re excited to begin Week 7 and continue building on the wonderful progress the students are making!

This week in Math, we will keep working on number identification and counting to and from 20. The children are becoming more confident each day! We’re also exploring “Friends of Ten”—numbers that add together to make 10. These foundational skills are helping students build strong number sense.

In literacy, we’ll continue writing simple sentences and encouraging students to use capital letters, finger spaces, and full stops. We’ll also be introducing the new letter and sound /g/ as in Gary Gecko. Be sure to ask your child about the sound and see if they can spot objects that start with /g/ at home!

In Religion, we will continue our unit of work all about Jesus. Over the coming weeks, we will explore who Jesus was and learn all about his life and teachings. It’s a wonderful opportunity for students to deepen their understanding of kindness, compassion, and community.

To celebrate National Reconciliation Week, Miss Ansell joined our Prep classroom to discuss bridging now to next. Our Little Leaders then created a wrist band to wear.

Science

Our Chicks are growing!! We have spent time over the past two weeks Observing our Chickens and their growth. We have identified their features, creating labelled diagrams, and discussed that this is important to ensure we can tell our Chicks apart.

Zones of Regulation: To consolidate our learning about the Zones of Regulation, our Preps joined with the Year 1 students today to create collaborative class posters. We watched videos to identify how the different characters might have been feeling and discussed what body clues might appear if they were in the Green, Yellow, Blue or Red Zones.

Collaborative Learning

We also had the opportunity to attend the Under 8’s Day at Cloncurry State School. We participated in necklace and biscuit making, story time, dancing with our very own Miss Jill, drumming with Uncle Hombre and exploration of the emergency services vehicles.

And just like that we are halfway through the Term!

In literacy this week, we have learnt the new letter and sound /h/ for Hannah Hippo. We have also continued learning and practicing our new ‘Tricky Words’ I, the, my, a, is, was, you and to.

During our math lessons, we will continue to learn to sequence the days of the week and times of the day including morning, lunchtime, afternoon and night time, and connect them to familiar events and actions.

In Religion we have started our unit of work all about Jesus! Over the coming weeks we will explore who Jesus was and learn all about his life.

Science

Excitedly, We have welcomed 6 chickens into our Prep family. This week we have discussed what observations are and completed an observation on the chickens.

National Simultaneous Storytime in Australia is an annual event where schools, libraries, and communities across the country read the same book at the same time. This Year our school participated in the event by joining in on the story book The Truck Cat.

Today in Prep, we were lucky enough to be joined by Mrs Karen Parnell who taught us all about how important it is to blow our noses. We watched the video Blow, Breath, Cough and participated in the process of how noise travels through the ear!

I cannot believe we are already three weeks into the Term !

Looking ahead to Week Four and Five, we will consolidate our learning of the letter names and sounds of o, c, d, h. We will also revise our learnt 'Tricky Words', I, the, my, a, is. 'Tricky Words' are words that occur most frequently in written material.

Our Little Learners will revise their learning of Rhyme. Over the past weeks we have listened to/for and identified rhymes, letter patterns and sounds in words. We have orally blend and segmented phonemes in single syllable words.

Looking forward to the remainder of the Term in Religion, students will listen and respond to stories of and about Jesus in the Gospels that tell of Jesus’ life as a Jew. They will also describe ways in which believers pray together during special celebrations and rituals that mark important times in the life of believers and in the Church Year.

We will also spend Week Four consolidating students knowledge on Shapes. Our Little Learners have sorted, named and created familiar shapes; recognising and describing familiar shapes within objects in the environment, giving reasons.

Science

Today in Prep, we excitedly welcomed back the Year Four students and Mrs Wall to candle our chicken eggs. This process establishes viable eggs.

We were lucky to find out that 11 eggs are developing chicks.

Science

In Science this term our Little Learners will continue to explore, external features of living things.

Our Little Leaners have loved spending time in our Vet creative play area helping the sick animals!

Over the last week we have spent time looking at living and non living things, identifying the differences and categorising them. We have also spent time looking briefly at the life cycle of a chicken and talking about the incubator.

On Thursday afternoon, we excitingly put our eggs into the incubator! Mrs Wall and the Year Four students joined our Preps to help explain the process.

Welcome back to Term 2! I hope everyone had a lovely break, I was excited to hear from all our Little Learners last week about what they got up to.

We have had a lovely start back to the Term, settling back into our routine and hitting the ground running, learning the vowel letter O and starting our Math unit all about Shapes.

Looking forward into Week 2, we will learn the new sound and letter /c/ (Cody Camel). In math we will continue to explore shape and begin to describe attributes. During our Religion lessons, we will complete our learning on the Story of Easter.

During our Science unit, we have been exploring the features of plants and animals. Last week we set up our class vet clinic as well as our florist. We planted flowers and began to look at the life cycle of chickens. As part of our Science learning, we will be hatching chickens in an incubator. We hope to incubate about 10 eggs. I would like to put these in the incubator by the middle of Week 3. Please let me know if you have any suitable eggs.

Staffing Changes

Mrs Renee McConachy will be returning to St Joseph's from Maternity Leave this term. Mrs McConachy will be taking over from Miss Pucciarmati in Prep each Thursday. We're excited to welcome Mrs McConachy back from leave.

In Science this term our Little Learners will continue to explore, external features of living things. This Term we have set up a Dramatic Play Kitchen and Vet Clinic.

Buddies

Through the remainder of the year, we will join weekly with our Year 6 Buddies. Today we got to participate in shared reading together. On Wednesday, we will again join with our Year 6 Buddies to make some ANZAC Day Cookies and discuss the importance of ANZAC Day.

After participating in our ANZAC Assembly, we excitedly go to explore an Army Truck!

In preparation for ANZAC Day, Prep joined with their Year 6 Buddies to create poppies and make ANZAC biscuits. We explored the text ANZAC Ted and discussed the importance of ANZAC Day.

Overview: Term 2

Literacy:

This term in Prep we will learn the letter names and sounds of o, c, d, h, e, n, g, l. We will also start to learn our first 'Tricky Words'. 'Tricky Words' are words that occur most frequently in written material. We will begin to learn the words I, the, my, a, is, was, you and to.

Our Little Learners will listen to/for and identify rhymes, letter patterns and sounds in words. They will orally blend and segment phonemes in single syllable words.

Religion:

Students will listen and respond to stories of and about Jesus in the Gospels that tell of Jesus’ life as a Jew. They will also describe ways in which believers pray together during special celebrations and rituals that mark important times in the life of believers and in the Church Year.

Numeracy:

We will start Term 2 learning about shapes. Our Little Learners will sort, name and create familiar shapes; recognise and describe familiar shapes within objects in the environment, giving reasons.

Science:

In Science this term our Little Learners will continue to explore, external features of living things.

As part of this learning, we will be hatching chickens in an incubator. We hope to incubate about 10 eggs. I would like to put these in the incubator in the first week after the holidays. Please let me know if you have any suitable eggs.

In health this Semester, Prep have been exploring the URStrong Program on Thursdays. This program helps kids establish and maintain healthy relationships, manage conflict with kindness and increase their overall resilience.

We have explored the Zones of Regulation and corresponding body clues as well as created a class Catastrophe Scale, identifying when Miss Brock needs to know about things and when it is something that the students can work out independently.

We operate a positive rewards system in Prep - acknowledging and rewarding the positives. Every day is a fresh start, stickers are distributed for displaying positive attitudes to learning, having a good Work Ethic and for Being a Bucket Filler.

From time to time, reminders may be necessary before consequences are applied. Learners may be given time out reflection in a Buddy Classroom, Library Detention (usually for not completing work) and communication with families if persistent poor behaviour is not improved during the school day.