Mentone Park Junior School: Foundation Newsletter: Term 2 Week 10

Foundation Newsletter: Term 2 Week 10

Connecting with the Preps

As we reflect on the first semester of the children's schooling, it is an incredible realisation just how much the children have learnt and achieved in a comparatively short period of time. You only have to look in their books, listen to them read, tune into the conversations that fill the room and watched their interactions with each other to know how much they have grown academically, socially and emotionally. Each and every child should be proud of their achievements.

We would like to thank everyone for the incredible support we have had this term. We feel there is a wonderful connection between school and home, a partnership that provides the best possible opportunity for the children to reach their full potential. We would particularly like to thank all the parents and grandparents for 'getting behind' and enriching the children's experiences and understanding of their personal histories. We thoroughly enjoyed sharing in this Inquiry Unit with the children.

The first semester may nearly be finished but the count down continues to the First 100 Days of School celebrations. This day falls on Wednesday 1st August. Further information of the impending celebrations will be sent home at the beginning of Term 3.

Next term is going to be another busy and exciting time. We will be participating in the STOMP dance program on a weekly basis as the children hone their dance and performance skills in preparation for our bi-annual concert. Further information regarding this will also be sent home early next term.

Our Inquiry Unit will be based around Biological Science which will involve investigations of living things. It is the perfect unit to encompass a trip to the wonderful Melbourne Zoo!!

Language

The children have continued to develop their skills to write simple narratives with one or two characters, a setting and an adventure. They are continuing to learn how to structure a story and further develop some of their wonderful ideas. The children are being encouraged to re-read their writing to look for simple spelling errors, left out words and to ensure the story makes sense. Is it logically sequenced? Does it come to a satisfactory conclusion?

The children all LOVE the opportunity to share their work in Author's Chair but some days it is just too hard to choose. So we circle up and share everyone's work!

We encourage everyone to continue listening to your children read during the holidays. Please spend some time encouraging your child to 'ponder' a book - what might it be about, who might be in it, does it remind you of another story or something you have seen or done? Please remember discussing the book after reading is vital to developing children's comprehension and, dependent on the book and where a discussion leads, also assists expanding/developing their general knowledge.

We are happy for your child to take home several books (or more) over the holidays but also suggest a visit to the local library.

Magic 100 Words
Next term we will continue testing the children on the M100W. We would like the children to practise through playing games at home and when they feel they are ready to let us know. We will then check their automatic recognition of a set of words and then, if appropriate, send home a new colour (set). If you feel your children can read the words without having to sound out (automatic recognition), you might like to begin challenging them to spell them correctly. Some words are a lot trickier than others!

Maths

Last week we enjoyed learning about Capacity! We compared the capacity of two containers and asked the questions, does this container hold more or does it hold less? The children enjoyed venturing outside to fill two containers with tan bark to then tip the tan bark out in two separate piles to see which container could hold more. We also used unifix to fill containers and then count to see which container could hold more or less. This week and next we are learning about 'sharing'. We have been telling 'sharing' stories such as, there were 10 cookies and two people, how many do they get each? We have been discussing sharing equally, fair shares and unfair shares.

Reminders

Could we please ask that for birthdays just a small treat for each student be brought in e.g. freddo frog, cup cake, or lolly pop. Thank you.

It has been great to see some of our students gain more independence by bringing in their school bag and unpacking it themselves. As we are now nearing the end of Term 2 it would be great to see more students doing this. You may have a discussion prior to school about what they need to do when they walk in e.g. put bag away, get out drink bottle, put fruit break in their tub and put black pocket in the tub.
Just a friendly reminder that fruit/veg break is to be raw food, not pureed or dried. Also we have fruit/veg break twice a day and so we encourage the children to have two pieces of fruit for the day. Thank you.

The Prep children enjoying P.M.P.

Sitting in their 'teams' listening to instructions. Over the weeks, each child will have the opportunity to be a leader.

Balancing on 'the bridge' and working the best way to cross.

The 'A Frame' is a bit more challenging.

Throwing the ball onto the rebound net. Catching the ball can be tricky.

Stomp and catch. Stomp on the end of the board and the bean bag flies up. You have to find the 'just right' amount of stomp otherwise the bean bag flies way too high or not high enough.