Welcome to our end of term round up and whilst the wintery weather has been wild, we have been busy embracing lots of new learning in the Prep classroom. The prep students have been lucky enough to participate in lots of fun activities this term, including Book Week, Clubs & Wheelie Wednesday. The return of ‘Clubs’ this term has been a highlight for many prep students, participating in Minecraft & Robotics, drawing, LEGO and table tennis, just to name a few! We have been lucky enough to also have Tom join us in the Prep class for three weeks as he completes his university placement. The students have loved getting to know Tom and trying to beat him in a game of ‘High Five’.

We have continued our wonderful learning in literacy this term, building our understanding of what makes a great sentence! We have been learning about using nouns and verbs in our writing and the Preps are all over identifying the different parts of sentences. We have almost mastered reading and writing words with five sounds and are looking forward to learning some new sounds next term. This year, to celebrate ‘Book Week’ and our love of literature, we dressed up as our favourite book characters and held a book swap! Congratulations to all our families who made a terrific effort to organise some fabulous costumes. Well done to the Junior School Council who hosted a wonderful ‘Character Parade’. Carmel from Rotary Club has also visited the Prep students. As part of their ‘Beginning to Read’ program, Carmel read three entertaining picture story books to the Prep children, and they have selected their favourite book to receive their own copy of.

In numeracy we have been looking at equal groups, both making and sharing into equal groups. The prep students explored what makes numbers odd and even and are now experts at identifying these around the classroom. We have also explored half fractions, ensuring that they must be equal to be halves. We have explored halves of shapes, collections and numbers. To finish off the term, we will be learning about ordinal numbers and reviewing our learning from this term.

Our Inquiry sessions have continued to support our understanding of push and pull. We have explored how levers and pulleys work, noticing these in and around the school. The preps showed great interest in going outside and making our own pulley system on the playground. Over the next couple of weeks, we will be looking at how to fix problems in our machines and continuing to have a go at making our very own, successful, Rube Goldberg machine.

Throughout our Respectful Relationships program, we have been exploring help seeking. We have mastered the names of ALL the teachers in the school and have talked about things that we might need help with. Students each came up with 5 people who could help them if the needed. To finish off our help seeking unit, the prep students became fabulous actors, role playing help seeking with their peers.

We have had a very busy and exciting third term. A big thanks to all our families and school community who support us so wonderfully.

- Miss Erskine