Week 5 Update

Dear Parents

Please read through our week 5 messages:

Sight Word Progression

How is your child going with their sight words? As soon as your child can READ and SPELL the words in their current list (independently) it is helpful to let us know, so that we can retest them ASAP and move them onto the next list. Thank you to parents who have been notifying me in the mornings about how sight words are going at home. This helps us to be able to test the children as soon as it’s needed and accelerate them through the program. Although we aim to test regularly, some children seem to be moving rather quickly through their current lists. Your feedback to us is very valuable in the classroom and because of this we have already celebrated with a number of children who have progressed forward onto the next sight word list. We are so proud of them!

I have also noticed that some of the children have been dropping sight words out of their homework folders. If you notice that your child is missing their sight words during gathering time I have a small container next to the parent information book for lost and found words.

Crunch and Sip

Our Crunch and Sip session is a short break during the morning block when the children usually have a period of ten minutes to have a drink and munch on their snack. They have a short brain break and then continue on with classroom activities as usual. After ten minutes the children are asked to put their remaining snacks in their school bag so that they can be finished at recess, to avoid the food becoming a distraction for further learning. Keeping this short time frame in mind, it is only necessary to pack a small snack (unless your child has a particularly large appetite)! Thank you for keeping the snacks natural and healthy.

Library

Just a reminder that we have our Library lesson each Wednesday. The children are also required to return their PLD Reading Packs on a Wednesday to the trolley in the classroom. This will allow the Library enough time to exchange the packs ready to go home on a Thursday.

Observation Surveys

Tomorrow and Friday, we will have a relief teacher in both Year One classes, while Monique and I administer the Observation Survey Assessment. This assessment involves a series of early Literacy tasks which give us an indication of individual student achievement at the beginning of Year One. The information from the assessment will assist us with our future Literacy planning and give us a thorough indication of your child’s current knowledge and skills including reading, spelling and writing. As this assessment is a one-to-one task, the students will be removed from the classroom and taken to work in a quieter space to complete the allocated tasks. If you have any questions about the assessment, please don’t hesitate to ask.

Have a fabulous remainder of the week and enjoy a well-deserved long weekend with your families.

Amy Rundle