Visual Art Learning

This term in Visual Art, the Prep students will be exploring a range of artist's depictions of the circus. Last week, they were inspired by the animals of the circus and created some fantastic origami puppets.

Home learning: Literacy and Numeracy

Strategies for Reading

 

Reading is the quest for meaning.

The illustrations are very important.

Before reading, examine the cover, the illustrations and the title.  Discuss with your child what they think the book will be about.

Look through the illustrations and attempt to predict the text.  Parents can scan the text and direct discussion accordingly using the language in the book. 

Unfamiliar words can be clarified whilst scanning the illustration.

Reading individual words is not as important as understanding the overall meaning of the text.

Read the text to your child and then let them have a go.  It may be useful to keep each book for a few days to re-read whilst also introducing a new book.

If your child is already reading the following are some strategies for your child to try if he or she gets stuck on a word: 

• Think of a word that looks and sounds similar.
• Think about what word would make sense in the story or sentence.
• Look for parts of the word that are familiar.
• Think about what word would sound right in the sentence.
• Check the pictures and the punctuation marks for clues.
• Go back and read again.
• Ask for help with the word.

Above all reading should be fun!

You can also share many daily reading activities with your child. Here are some ideas:

• Read recipes, food labels, schedules, maps, instructions, and brochures.
• Read traffic signs and signs in stores and restaurants.
• Look up information in cookbooks, manuals, phone books, atlases and dictionaries.
• Read greeting cards, letters, and e-mail messages to and from relatives and friends.
• 'I spy' is a great game to draw attention to 'initial sound' in words. It can be played using the letter or sound.
• Brainstorming simple rhyming words ('ent' SENT, WENT, BENT, RENT) ('at' CAT MAT RAT FAT)

 

Incidental Maths

 

 

Maths is all around us.

Take every opportunity to count with your child, eg while shopping for fruit, counting clothes pegs etc.,

Cooking is a perfect opportunity for counting and measuring ingredients.

Ask your child to help you solve everyday number problems. "We need four tomatoes to make our sauce for dinner, and we have only two. How many more do we need to buy?"

Play games using dice and cards. Rolling dice and adding or multiplying numbers. Add up the totals.  Play the game backwards to practise subtraction.

Measure items found around the house. Have your child find objects that are longer or shorter than a shoe or a string or a ruler. Together, use a shoe to measure the length of a floor mat. Fill different containers with sand in a sandbox or with water in the bath, and see which containers hold more and which hold less.

Estimation. Estimate the number of steps from your front door to the edge of your yard, then walk with your child to find out how many there really are, counting steps as you go. Estimate how many cartons of milk your family will need for the week. At the end of the week, count up the number of cartons you actually used.

Compare and organize household items. Take cereal boxes or cans of vegetables from the cupboard and have your child line them up from tallest to shortest.

Identify shapes and sizes. When playing with your child, identify things by their shape and size: "Pass me a sugar cube." "Take the largest cereal box out of the cupboard."

Play "I spy", looking for different shapes. "I spy something that is round." "I spy something that is rectangular." "I spy something that looks like a cone."

Hunt for patterns around your house and your neighbourhood. Your child will find patterns in clothing, in wallpaper, in tiles, on toys, and among trees and flowers in the park. Encourage your child to describe the patterns found. Try to identify the features of the pattern that are repeated.

 

 

Home Learning: Initial Sound

Home learning focus: identify the first sound in a word. Initial sound - The sound that the word begins with. (cat, rose, Monday)

Identifying the initial sound helps with reading (using the initial sound along with the picture to predict unknown words). Beginner writers use their sound letter awareness to produce text; identifying the key sounds and writing them in a sequence. This process begins with identifying the first sound in the word and matching it with the letter.

Practice saying the words of each picture (in the row) with your child.
Ask them to listen to the sound at the beginning of each word.
Choose the two words that begin with the same sound.

Additional task - create a list of some more words that begin with the same sound.

 

 

lion - gate - lip

 

moon - mouth - nose

 

watch - cup - window

 

worm - head - hill

 

tiger - book - balloon

Inquiry: How can we create different spaces with BOXES?

The preps have been collaborating with a group of 5/6 students to design and construct different spaces with recycled boxes using their combined ideas and imaginations. As part of our inquiry, we have been looking at different spaces that are special to us and why. We have also reflected on the purposes of different spaces and how different spaces can make you feel.It has been a special experience to see the junior and senior school working together.

Some useful iPad apps to use at home:

Below is a list of some iPad apps that might be engaging to use at home with your child. Some are harder to use than others but most are flexibly used for many purposes. We especially use Garage Band, Show me and Stop Motion Studio at school for many different things.

ABC Tracer

For practicing handwriting.

ABC Phonics

Helps with handwriting and spelling.

Puppet Pals HD (with Directors Edit) Enables children to tell stories or present learning in the form of a digital puppet show – can be creatively used for other means too. Great for enhancing oral storytelling and imaginative play. They can even take photos of themselves to use as puppets.

 

Scribble Press

For creating storybooks

 

ShowMe

Allows children to write stories/ explain anything using drawing tools, photos and audio recording.

 

FlipBook

To animate drawings!

Stop Motion Studio / Lego movie / Imotion

The students will be using this at school to make animations using Lego, clay, drawings and other toys.

Place Value MAB –

For identifying numbers and using place value

Hundreds Board

Useful to look at numbers from 0 to 100 and counting

Hangman

For spelling and letter recognition

 

Garage Band – can be used to create music and is very fun too.

 

Freebooks-

Some reading apps

Toy Story Read along – and other childrens books in the app store

Aurasma

Can mix animations and real life!

Google Earth

A map/globe of the world!!

 

Lemonade Stand 

Allows children to see the 'recipe' for different drinks and count the parts to make the drink. 

Week 4 Happenings

Monday

 

Help your child to change their take home book from the Junior school library.

Circus Skills regular incursion for all preps.

Tuesday

 

Specialist classes:
Italian – Prep H/Prep E

PE/Sport – Prep M/ Prep H

Visual Art – Prep E/ Prep M

Parent Information evening: 5.30 - 6.30pm

Wednesday

 

The LAST Student free day for prep. They will start 5 day weeks as of next week.

One on One interview between teacher and child. If your child has an interview this week please check to see what time they need to come in.

Thursday

 

Specialist classes:

Italian- Prep M

PE- Prep E

Visual Art- Prep H

Welcome Picnic: 6.00 - 8.00pm at Princes Park Playground

 

Friday 

 

Help your child to change their take home book from the Junior school library.

Assembly in the gym and coffee cart available! 3pm – 3:30pm.

PICK UP POINT: At your child's home group coloured cone located near the Playground and the Vege Patch.



 

Circus Skills

The Preps have continued to learn more exciting circus skills during their Circus training on Mondays.

So far the preps have learnt:

• Poi:  swinging tethered weights through a variety of rhythmical and geometric patterns.
• Devil Sticks: one manipulating one stick (baton) between two sticks, held one in each hand.
• Juggling scarves: throwing and catching the scarves (quack --> rahhhh!)
• Hoola hoops: performing a variety of tricks
• Ribbon twirling: using their creativity to express themselves using the twirling of the ribbon.  Tricks - snake, vortex of doom, rainbow
• Pedal mover: the first step to learning how to ride a unicycle. There are 4 wheels and 2 pedals.
• Acrobatics: The bunk bed, the V balance and the aeroplane
• Spinning Plates: this skill involves spinning a plate on a pole

Inquiry exploration into space

This is a friendly reminder to please bring in a drawing, photo or video of your child's special place at home. We would like to make a connection with the children’s home lives in order to compare spaces we see at school and at home.

If it is a bit tricky printing off the photo, feel free to email it through to this address and we will print it off tomorrow. You can send videos through also and we will play them for their sharing.

 

phpsprep@gmail.com

 

We will be officially sharing them as part of our inquiry learning next week so please make sure you bring / email as soon as possible.

 

Thankyou!

From the Prep Team

Introducing the Kimochis

 

Feelings can be messy…Kimochis can help!

The Prep neighbourhood have been learning about the Kimochis. Kimochi means “feeling” in Japanese. The Kimochis are plush, educational toys designed to help kids identify, understand and manage their feelings in a fun, comfortable way.

“I think I am like Cat because sometimes I can be a bit bossy”

“I am like Clover because I am forgetful”

“I like Hugtopus because he is silly and funny like me”

Last week the children participated in a Kimochi workshop focusing on bravery. We read "Bug makes a splash", a story focusing on the character Bug. He finds change and new experiences a bit scary. Bug learns to be brave and overcomes his fear of flying and water. The Preps can relate to Bug, starting school was a very different experience and scary for some children.

 

 

We discussed they different situations where they have had to be brave and then they illustrated their ideas. 

 

 

 

 

For more information on the Kimochis visit: http://www.kimochis.com.au/

Counting and Pattern Making!

The preps have been exploring counting and pattern making with blocks and unifix. Soon we will be going on a pattern hunt around the school to see how patterns are used everywhere. The preps also challenged themselves to choose a number and count that number in blocks. We even started practicing writing that number.

Have you filled a bucket today?

Last week, the Prep Neighbourhood read Have you filled a bucket today? by Carol McCloud.

 

 

The book is about how we all carry an invisible bucket that contains our feelings. When our bucket is full, we feel great. When our bucket is empty, we feel sad. A bucket filler is someone who says or does nice things to other people. By doing this, they are filling other people's buckets and filling their own bucket at the same time. On the other hand, a bucket dipper says or does things to cause other people to feel bad. A bucket dipper empties their buckets when they say and do mean things.

 

The Preps had some fabulous examples of bucket filling during play time:

 

"Edward and Jackson played with me today" Ruben

"Caring for my friend" Qilaavsuk

"Your T-shirt is cool" Jimmy

"Having fun with Adam" Tindur