Grade Prep Term 1 Newsletter

General
This Term Newsletter will provide you with information about your children’s upcoming teaching and learning experiences in the new term. To find out what other year levels are doing, please refer to the school’s website. There is also plenty of additional information provided via Compass throughout the school year, so please make a point of touching base regularly.

Welcome to the Grade Prep Department for 2021! Our wonderful teachers are Mrs Emily Hicks (PEH), Mrs Sarah Blair (PSB), Miss Emily Gezun (PEG), Mrs Paige Deacon (PPD) and Miss Melissa Crosthwaite (PMC) who is our Team Leader. We hope you had a relaxing and enjoyable summer break, and that you’re ready and eager for a wonderful year together.

We could not be more pleased with the positive start the children have made to their first year of school, and all students should be incredibly proud of their efforts. It is so lovely to see such bright and happy faces arriving at the classroom each morning, ready to “Be Brave” and take on a new day of learning. We thank you, parents and carers, for your openness, honesty and flexibility during our start of year Prep Assessment Interviews, prior to the first day of school. The Prep Team immensely enjoyed getting to know you, and your child, during these appointments, and we look forward to using the information gathered to create engaging and purposeful learning experiences for all students.

To continue supporting your child’s positive start to school, we encourage you to instil independence in them, such as by letting them walk to, and enter, their classroom by themselves of a morning, and carry their own school bag. We look forward to sharing an exciting and successful year of learning and fun with your child, as well as working in partnership with you to support your child’s growth and development during such a special year of school.

Literacy
What an exciting start we have made with developing our love of reading! The children have been eagerly exploring their classroom libraries , listening to exciting picture story books, and have begun to learn how to use the pictures to help them read and understand a story. Throughout the term, we will continue to develop our own Independent Reading ‘Desktop Libraries’ so we can explore the features of simple texts and practise important reading skills such as using the pictures to help us read, remembering the text pattern, pointing to the words, and reading from left to right.

Children will also have the opportunity to create their own texts during our Writer’s Workshop sessions. Using popular picture books such as ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ and ‘Mrs Wishy Washy’, students will borrow these authors’ ideas and create their own book, becoming authors themselves in the process! During the term we will focus on developing our Independent Writing skills by drawing pictures to convey a message and learning about letter sounds and how we can use these to write words. We will also engage in shared Language Experiences, which will develop our reading, writing, and vocabulary skills.

Numeracy
Our budding Mathematicians are enjoying engaging in a range of hands on and open activities to help them consolidate their number knowledge to 12. An important part of our Prep Numeracy across the year is developing each child’s ‘Number Sense’, so that they have a solid foundation on which to build later skills. This term, we will be exploring how to make, recognise, and order number collections to 12, as well as focusing on the importance of careful counting, by ensuring we count every item in a group. We will also be exploring 2D shapes in our environment and how we can use these shapes to make different patterns.

Inquiry
Our Term 1 Inquiry focus is “All About Me”, where students will focus on their personal and social learning through our Play Is The Way activities and lessons, their Investigations time in the classroom, and during the setting up of classroom routines and expectations. The students learn about their place at Lara Lake by becoming aware of themselves as people and learners, and establishing positive relationships with their peers. Through open interactions with the many staff at school, students also become familiar and comfortable with different teachers and environments. This Inquiry unit is based on developing and maintaining these relationships so that students feel happy, safe, and confident throughout the whole year.

Developing Independence

Term 1 focuses on developing your child’s independence as quickly as possible. We establish high expectations of the students from day 1, and continual modelling and reinforcement of these expectations leads your child to develop the responsibility and independence they need to be successful at school.

At school, students are expected to pack and unpack their bag and lunch box (including opening packets/containers), take off and put on their own jumpers, tie/do up their own shoes, and bring their satchel and hand in notes and lunch orders as required. We ask that children carry their own school bag and walk to line up at their classroom when the music plays of a morning, and follow the expectations of being a Lara Lake student whilst on school grounds.

We understand that students will misplace belongings throughout the year, such as hats and jumpers, and we ask that students look in their classroom for their belongings during the day, and that families check lost property regularly.

Reminders
A reminder that Department of Education policy stipulates that phones, watches or other devices with communicative ability cannot be carried by students while on the school premises during school hours, without Principal approval. For further details please refer to the policy documents on Compass and the Lara Lake PS website.
Hats: Until April 30^th, our SunSmart ‘No Hat, No Play’ policy is in force. As such, your child’s hat is kept safely in their classroom to ensure they are able to play outside during Term 1.

Water Bottles: Please ensure your child brings a named, full drink bottle to school each day. Students are able to refill their drink bottles from their classroom sink.

Label Clothes and Belongings: Please ensure ALL items (jumpers, hats, lunch containers, water bottles, etc) are clearly labelled with your child’s name and grade. If these items are misplaced, they are easier to return if they are named. Any unnamed items will be taken to lost property.

Classroom Donations: We would appreciate any donations of tissues, hand sanitiser, and paper towel.

Home Reading: Home Reading will commence in Week 6. Students will need to take responsibility for bringing their satchel, reading diary, and book to school.

Canteen: Prep students can commence using the canteen for lunch orders and over the counter sales from Tuesday 9^th March. Prep students are not to use or access the canteen before then. We encourage Prep students to only bring a GOLD COIN to spend at the canteen for over the counter sales.

The Prep Team