Foundation

Term 3 Highlights

Term 3 was packed with exciting activities both inside and outside the classroom! 

Students continued to develop their skills in phonics through MSL, learning about open and closed syllables, the FLOSS rule, and vowel digraphs such as /oo/, /ai/, and /ay/. In Readers' Workshop, they further developed their comprehension skills by exploring Boy and Koala Lou, which are two texts that beautifully tied into our STEAM unit on the Commonwealth Games. In Mathematics, students strengthened their skills in counting collections up to, and beyond, 20, while also being introduced to combining collections. 

Our STEAM unit centred on the Commonwealth Games. To bring their learning to life, the Foundation students participated in several events. One such event was the Potato Commonwealth Games, where students created their very own "potato athletes" to compete. Leading up to the big event, students combined their Literacy and STEAM skills by crafting detailed profiles for their athletes. In Mathematics, they explored non-standard units of length and mass, then put their knowledge into practice during the Games. For instance, they weighed their potatoes during the "Weightlifting" event and measured rolling distances during the "Running" track event. 

Apart from our STEAM events, other highlights in Term 3 included Swimming, R U Ok Day, and the Footy Colours Day! 

Term 4 Overview

Literacy

• MSL

In Term 4, the Foundation students will be learning the following sound patterns and spelling rules:

• Two Spellings, One Sound: /ee/ /ea/
• Silent Final /e/
• Y as a vowel (long i sound at the end of one syllable words)
• Y as a vowel (long e sound at the end of multi-syllable words)
• Two Spellings, One Sound: /oi/ /oy/
• k/ck: Long Spelling Right After Short Vowel rule
• Two Spellings, One Sound: /oa/ /ow/

• Reading

The students have been enjoying engaging in various mentor texts during Reader's Workshop. This term, the Foundation students will again explore several mentor texts, such as The Gruffalo and No Way Yirrikipayi. These texts link to our STEAM Unit on Imaginary Animals, and will provide opportunities to develop students' comprehension skills through skills such as making connections and retelling stories. 

• Writing

During our Writing sessions, the Foundation students are working on:

• Being precise with letter formation and sizing using dotted thirds lines
• Adding capital letters, finger spaces and full stops to sentences
• Writing down dictated sentences
• Identifying nouns, verbs, and adjectives 
• Writing a recount of our experiences and including details such as the setting, and who was there
• Retelling familiar stories and events through illustrations and labelling

Mathematics 

This term, we will be exploring: 

• Combining and separating numbers to 20, including using subitising to identify number pairs that make a given total, partitioning and combining numbers to 20, understanding part-part-whole relationships of numbers to 20, and solving worded problems.  
• Sharing equally, including using a range of practical strategies for sharing small groups of numbers, such as visual displays or concrete materials.
• Pattern, including identifying repeating parts and errors (missing parts of the patterns). 
• Non-standard measurement of capacity
• Collecting and displaying data

STEAM

Our STEAM Unit for Term 4 will be Imaginary Animals. The students will be learning about: 

• Living and non-living things
• Wants and needs of living things
• Animal habitats

This term, students will also be working on a STEAM project with a partner. They will be making a habitat diorama for their imaginary animal and will be crafting a report to go with it. 

Important Dates

• Thursday 15th October: Disco
• Tuesday 20th October: Myuna Farm Excursion
• Friday 23rd October: Author Visit
• Tuesday 3rd November: Melbourne Cup Public Holiday
• Friday 18th December: End of Term 4 (Early Finish: 2:30pm)