welcome back to Term 2!

Well, it is hard to believe that Week 1 of Term 2 is already over! 

 

I would like to personally thank parents for welcoming me back. I am happy to be back! I know many of you may wish to discuss your child and how they have settled with me. I can say that the students have all taken the teacher change very well and we even had a visit from Miss 'S' this week. 

 

ANZAC Day

This week we held a special ceremony for ANZAC day. The students were very respectful and showed maturity during the ceremony. We buddied up with our older buddy class on the Thursday afternoon to make a wreath for the ceremony. Sonya and Qihang did a great job of walking it to the flagpole with the Student Councillors of Room 32.

TERM 1 LEARNING

In Term 1, the focus was on sounds and numbers (recognition and counting).

 

The Kindy ‘golden words’ were covered explicitly again, and it would be appreciated if parents could ensure these words have been consolidated and students can recognise them instantly. This will aid in their reading fluency in Term 2. 

 

It was our aim for students to have a grasp on their letter sounds and numbers to 20 in this term, as it is required as a foundation for our learning in Term 2. 

 

TERM 2 LEARNING

This term, we are starting to extend students’ skills and understanding of how sounds can be blended to make a word. We are starting with simple two and three letter words that are decodable (VC and CVC). Later in the term we will move to four letter decodable words.

 

We will be working through the red and blue sight words explicitly as a whole class. Your child's achievement of these words in their individual folders will be determined by their ability to instantly recognise the word in a range of formats e.g in a book, on a flashcard etc. Some students may be ahead of the "whole class explicit words," however, it is important that they not only learn to recognise the word, but also how to use it in the correct context in spoken and written texts. We will continue to support all students to work towards their achievements. Please ensure you are also practising these to reinforce and consolidate their learning.

 

In Mathematics, we are moving beyond basic number recognition and sequences. We will now be introducing students to the concept that a number refers to a quantity and this can be represented as a whole or can be broken into parts. This concept will be the foundation for teaching students to add and subtract numbers in their future learning. This skill can be quite tricky for some students and they usually need lots of reinforcing and encouragement in the beginning. I am happy to help you with the process we use and how to use concrete materials to support and consolidate the idea at home.