Week 9

As Term 2 comes to an end, we would like to congratulate our Kindy children and their families on a wonderful semester. The children have come a long way in such a short period of time. Please continue to support your child through home practice in the holidays. A few minutes each day can really make a big difference in supporting your child to retain the concepts taught at school.

Literacy 

During Week 10, we will be reviewing all of the sounds learnt this term. We will also be identifying rhyming words, conducting science experiments and celebrating NAIDOC Week.

Sounds learnt this term:

Mm as in monkey

Rr as in rat

Cc as in cat

Kk as in kangaroo

Hh as in hen

Ee as in elephant

Dd as in dog

Holiday revision ideas

·  Finding things that start with initial sounds when at home or out and about. I Spy is a fun family game that’s great during a car trip. E.g. “I spy with my little eye something that starts with Mm.”

·  Study Ladder activities are updated each week of school term to support our learning in the classroom.

·  Practising writing letters, with correct formation, using crayons, textas or paint.

Reading

·  Reading books together – spotting letters they recognise in the text or identifying rhyming words.

·  The children have loved reading and discussing a range of books at school this term.  We have been learning about some of the parts of a book, such as the cover, title and author, and also how to track the words left to right when reading.  We have used clues from the pictures to predict what might happen in the story.

· We would like to encourage you to read to your child each day. Reading aloud has many benefits for your child’s overall learning and development.  Talk to your child about the story, and ask them questions to develop their ability to understand the text.

Numeracy 

We are continuing to count, recognise and order numbers 1 – 10. Counting objects at home and stating how many, matching objects to a number and writing the numbers with correct formation will assist your child as we move forward with numbers 11 – 20 next semester.

Reports and Portfolios 

Reports are due to be sent home next week and they will be accompanied by your child’s portfolio. We are all very proud of what they are achieving and I hope you enjoy looking at some of your child’s work. Please ensure that the portfolio is returned on your first day of school next term, so that we can continue to add to their portfolio.

Have a wonderful break and we look forward to seeing you all in Term 3.

Week 9 Photos

Week 8

Literacy 

It was exciting this week as the students learnt many new WOW words to build their vocabulary. e.g. envelope, escape, elevator. They would love to show you how clever they are – just ask them!

Our Hospital Emergency Department was kept busy with our ‘doctors’ working hard looking after the ‘patients’ who needed extra care. 

Next week they will be practising their dentistry skills with the dolls, who may need their teeth fixed! Social dramatic play is greatly enjoyed by all the students and helps teach them social skills to share, use their imagination, and communicate while working together.

Next week we are focusing on the initial letter sound Dd as in - Doll starts with d, d, d. Drum starts with d, d, d. Dinosaur starts with d, d, d. 

Our new sight word is Dad. We will be learning to recognise this word in sentences and making up our own sentences that use the word Dad.  For example:

Dad can sit.

I am a dad.

Look Mum, Dad can run.

When reading books with your child, you may like to ask them to find words that they recognise. Sight words that have been learnt so far are look, Mum, am, at, I, a, can.

Numeracy 

The students are continuing to review their skills in identifying, ordering, counting and using one to one correspondence for numbers 1 to 10. They will also reinforce recognising dots on a dice, without counting. Our focus for the next two weeks will be to start counting from different points on a number line e.g. starting at 5 and counting 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.

NAIDOC Week has been postponed from the original July dates to November, due to the uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic across communities and cities. Wattle Grove Primary School will still be celebrating NAIDOC Week in July. In preparation the Kindy students will learn about the history and culture of Aboriginal people. They will participate in activities based on stories, art, craft and songs. NAIDOC is celebrated by Australians from all walks of life and provides an opportunity to stand together and acknowledge our Indigenous Australians.

It has been very rewarding to see each child making progress in their learning since the beginning of this year and we are extremely proud of them. It must be noted that each child progresses at their own pace and at their appropriate developmental levels, hence regular support and reinforcement of concepts taught needs to be consistent both at school and home. The children have been assessed for mid-year reports that will be issued at the end of this term. Please talk to your child and support them, so that they can independently and confidently demonstrate their learning.

We are so proud of all our ‘bounce back bears’ who made it through the challenging times that we have faced over this semester and have come out happy and well.

Two more weeks to go before the holidays! Keep strong, healthy and warm as winter progresses. 

Congratulations to our merit certificate recipients!

Week 7

This week, our happy and hard-working students thoroughly enjoyed delving into the Hh phonic sound. We focused on the Dr Seuss book The Cat in the Hat, as it helped us to further explore the Hh phonic sound and enabled us to practise identifying rhyming words such as cat and hat! Students made their own Cat in the Hat craft, using their knowledge of patterns to make a red and white pattern for the cat’s hat.

To reinforce the Hh phonic sound, we also had the grand opening of our new Teddy Bear Hospital! Students used excellent communication skills to communicate with their fellow doctors, nurses and surgeons to come up with the best treatment plan for their teddy bear patients. This week we also practised reading our name, identifying the letters in our name and writing our name using a capital letter to start, followed by lowercase letters.

In Numeracy, we have been revising numbers one to ten. We focused on recognising numbers one to ten and orally counting to ten. Students demonstrated some excellent counting skills and hopping skills whilst playing the number hopscotch game. We also enjoyed playing a number recognition game and practised writing and building numbers from one to ten.

In Science, we explored floating and sinking objects. We challenged our students to guess which fruit/vegetables would float and which ones would sink. We then tested our theories by dropping our fruit/vegetables into the water one by one to see if they would float or sink. Students quickly realised that the heavier (more dense) fruit/vegetables sank straight to the bottom, while the lighter (less dense) fruit/vegetables floated on the surface of the water.

  

Next week we will be focusing on the Ee phonic sound such as egg starts with e, e, e. We will also be revising numbers one to ten, focusing on sequencing numbers to ten.

It has been excellent to see the wonderful results on StudyLadder! Each week we will continue to upload new activities on StudyLadder that reinforce what the children are learning at school. We also encourage you to keep practising your letter sound flashcards and your number flashcards with your child at home.

Thank you to those children who brought in their Australian news to share with the class!

We look forward to another exciting week in Kindergarten! As always, please speak to your class teacher if you have any questions or concerns.