Term 3, Week 1

Welcome to term 3, semester 2! We are exactly half way through the year and half way to entering year one. I hope you all had a relaxing two weeks with your children.

This term is very important as we are working extra hard to increase independence, encourage resilience and actively continue our literacy and numeracy skills. Our aim this semester is to get the children prepared for year one. Whilst this may seem early, it is a big transition into year one and we want our children to be successfully prepared for the next stage in their schooling. Some of the things you can do at home as well as continue the sight words and reading is to encourage independence with your child. I have had so much positive feedback from parents in the class who have started job charts and encouraged more responsibility around the house. Could you all please return your child's portfolio to school this week ready for us to update our term 3 work.

This week:

Value: Service

Letters: (revision) A, B, ai, ay

Numbers: 1, 11

Religion: Connections with Jesus

Sight word: one

This term we will be encouraging the children to be walking down to white post by themselves. This is a normal procedure at St. Bernardine's in Prep in Semester two. We will be gradually completing this process over the next few weeks and discussing this with the children.

I look forward to working with you this term.

Kind regards,

Miss Ritchie xx

Please find below the learning objectives for our key learning areas for this term:

English – In Reading, we will be building the student’s oral language skills, developing phonological awareness, reading and comprehension skills and developing knowledge of letter sound relationships. We continue our sight word and home reading program. This term we continue our listening and speaking tasks where students will have numerous opportunities to share personal experiences and "show & tell" activities with the class. In Writing, students will continue to focus on handwriting skills including letter formation, drawing and labelling pictures and using sentence starters to produce simple sentences. Term 3 will see us start using "High Five" writing with a focus on 5 key skills - using capital letters, full stops, finger spaces, correct or phonetic spelling and making sure our writing makes sense.

Mathematics - We will have a strong focus on numbers and will continue to recognise, represent and identify number words for numbers up to 10. This term we introduce teen numbers and start to develop our understanding of two digit numbers (11-20). We will also be exploring various mathematical concepts, including inquiry investigations on ordering events, days of the week and positional language.

Religion – Students will learn to communicate clearly their ideas, feelings and thoughts about God. Through the learning process, students will learn about creation, with a focus on the First Creation Story and God's special relationship with all of creation. Through this story, students will see how God’s presence is revealed in the goodness of creation. Students will also learn about God’s plan for people help each other to live safely and happily together. They will investigate how the stories of Jesus as a Jew are like their own stories now.

Science - We will be learning how the environment affects us and other living things. Students will investigate weather and seasons, looking at daily and seasonal changes in our environment and the affect of these on everyday life. Students will also learn how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander concepts of time and weather patterns explain how things happen in the world around them.

HASS–Integrating with our Science curriculum, students will sequence familiar events in order. They will also investigate Arnhem Land and learn to recognise familiar places on a map or globe. Students observe the familiar features of places and represent these features and their location on pictorial maps and models.