Week Five

We have already hit the middle of Term 3, and would like to congratulate children and families for a wonderful four weeks at school. Time flies when we are having so much fun!

Literacy

Phonics: This week the children are learning the phonic sound Ff and will be busy working on some Ff- Ff-Ff  Father’s Day surprises……ssssh!! Please don’t mention this to Dad!

Our home corner has transformed into a florist’s shop and the children are using their creativity to make flower arrangements and use the language and social skills required for customer service! Dramatic play is very important for children’s development and learning. They can try out roles from familiar family scenes and local community experiences. It enables children to develop their imagination and engage in experiences to make sense of the world they live in.

Sight words

Through the year, Kindy children have a list of 20 high frequency words, which are found in written texts and readers. Children are encouraged to recognise these words without having to ‘figure them out’. They are also referred to as sight words or look and say words. They are : I, am, a, look, mum, dad, is, it, at, in, can, the, we, like, here, see, go, will, to, this…..so far the children have learnt eleven.

This week’s sight word is ‘The’ e.g. Mum is at the school. The sun is hot.

The children have enjoyed learning and reviewing these words while reading them in sentences. They have also been observing how to track words in a sentence, from left to right, when reading.  

Story retelling – We have recently been focusing on oral storytelling. This is a great skill to teach children. It gives them the opportunity to build on their oral language skills including speech, vocabulary and grammar. Storytelling encourages a love of reading and stirs a child’s imagination. Exposure to stories provides children with ideas to use when telling their own stories. 

Show and Tell – Our news telling has been going very well and we have learnt some very interesting facts about various sea creatures.

Top Facts of the week: Dolphins have two ‘tummies’ !!

                                          A blue whale is longer than three buses in a line!

                                          The blue whale’s tongue can be as heavy as an elephant!

Songs

In Kindy we often teach concepts through music and movement to make learning fun and enjoyable for the children. Learning is optimised when the curriculum is taught through a multi-sensory medium and keeps children motivated and engaged. All Kindy classes have learnt songs for letter sounds, letter formation and number formation. They would love to teach you these songs – just ask them! Keep in mind that we have covered the following sounds Ss,Aa,Tt,Pp,Ii,Nn,Mm,Rr,Cc,Kk,Hh,Ee,Dd,Ll,Bb,Gg,Ff and numbers 1-15.

Numeracy

Children are focusing on the numbers in the ‘teens’ and will be reviewing numbers 1 to 15 over the next few weeks. We are practising how to accurately count objects and identify that the last number counted answers the question “How many?” We have learnt the maths strategy of counting on, doubling and now we are learning partitioning i.e. splitting a number into smaller units. e.g. 5 can be broken into 3 and 2 or 1 and 4.

The children have continued to amaze us with their progress.  Thank you to all parents for supporting your child at home with their learning. A few minutes each day can make a big difference in your child retaining the concepts taught at school. It is amazing to see all that the children have achieved in such a short space of time!

There are many events taking place at school and we are excitedly looking forward to the next five fantastic weeks in Term 3!

Book Week Parade

This year, the Book Week parade is on Friday 20 August at 9 – 9.20am. 

Blue Group children are invited to attend, dressed as their favourite Book Week character. 

Please add your child’s name to the list (classroom whiteboard) if you intend on bringing them to school. Your child will be brought back to the classroom and need to be collected at 9.30am.

Week Three

We have had a wonderful start to Term 3. The children have been excited to return to school to see their friends and teachers. It has been lovely to see all their smiling faces. Each child has settled quickly into classroom routines and applying what they have learnt in Terms 1 and 2. 

Literacy 

In Literacy, we have been reviewing all sounds covered last semester (S,A,T,P,I,N,M,R,C,K,H,E,D). Our new sounds this term are L, B, G, F, W, O and U. We will continue to practise identifying rhyming words and counting syllables in words using our bodies (head=1, shoulders=2, stomach=3, knees=4).

News Telling

The Kindy theme for Term 3 is “Commotion in the Ocean” and all learning areas will be integrated to link with this theme. We will be starting our news telling program, using the above topic. Children will bring in an object or picture about something connected to the ocean. We will be learning from each other, hence each child will share some information about their chosen item. 

Reading

We have started Guided Reading in Kindy. The children have been learning about the concept of print, now they will start learning to hold their own book and follow the text with their finger as we read together. Children will also begin to have these books sent home. Please spend some time with your child reading the book. There are questions on the right side of each page that can be used to support your child’s reading and comprehension skills. Please remember that children are not expected to read the book themselves yet, but encourage them to track the words with their pointer finger, as you read aloud and encourage them to join in as they are able. Talking about what is happening in the pictures and what might happen next are great ways of building your child’s understanding of what is being read. It is important that books are returned promptly on the due date to ensure they can be sent home to other students. If you have any questions, please speak to your class teacher. 

Numeracy

We will continue to build on number sense and will continue to work on understanding number lines. Children will find the missing number on a 1 to 10 number line. They have also been learning to identify the number that comes before and after. Children have been introduced to the concept of counting on. This week we will be counting objects into a bucket, e.g. 5 shells, and then count on 6, 7, as we add two more items. Our focus numbers are 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15.