Learning Space News
Foundation
Welcome to Term 3!
Students have an exciting term ahead with lots of new learning and exciting celebrations coming up. A couple of weeks ago they celebrated their 100 days of school! What an achievement! All students should be so proud of themselves and it is clear just how far they have all come since their first day of school. Students participated in lots of different activities about the number 100 and received a medal from their buddies during a special assembly. The teachers look forward to seeing even more growth in student learning over the next semester of school!
Lovely Literacy
Students are continuing to build their love of reading and writing. They are practising segmenting and blending to read words as well as develop different reading strategies, such as using picture clues and tracking the words as they read.
Students are excited to be involved in the Reading Buddies Project, a partnership with City of Greater Dandenong Libraries, which provides an opportunity for some students to experiences a range of stories.
In Writing, students are applying their sound knowledge to write interesting factual sentences.
Magical Maths
Foundation students will continue to work on developing their number sense through lots of counting, subitising, working out missing numbers, ordering numbers and focusing on the concepts of ‘before’ and ‘after’ numbers using lots of ‘hands on’ materials, games and problem solving approaches. They will develop efficient counting strategies through ‘bundling’ and creating groups using different materials. They will also be developing their knowledge and skills in addition by counting on, partitioning numbers and using number lines.
Students will explore measurement concepts including: length, mass and capacity. They are excited to use the Olympic Games to build our understanding of data and track the number of medals different countries win.
Incredible Inquiry
Students are learning about the difference between living and non-living things and what living things need to survive. They are also exploring how animals are farmed for particular purposes and recognise that plants and animals can be used as food or materials for clothing and shelter.
Students have been lucky enough to have 10 baby chicks come to visit. They got to watch these chicks hatch in the incubator and then watch them grow rapidly over two weeks.
Mr Hunter has organised for Foundation to have ducklings. All students and staff are excited to watch our ducklings hatch and to then take care of them.
Students really enjoyed the excursion to Chesterfield Farm where they learned all about the workings of a farm and its animals. They experienced milking a cow, riding a tractor, watching a sheepdog heard a group of sheep into a pen and even got to pat and feed some of the animals. It was a great experience!
Sparkling SEL (Social and Emotional Learning)
Students are learning about how to make fair decisions, develop help-seeking behaviours, and to communicate positively. They are also exploring our own identities as curious learners and friends.
Alongside SEL lessons is a focus on developing mindfulness through a combination of teaching and providing opportunities for students to have relaxation time.
Help-seeking behaviours is a topic that will be covered over most of Term 3 and will encourage students to become more proactive in seeking assistance for whatever challenges they may face. Help-seeking encompasses a set of learned behaviours and strategies, involving being able to identify a problem and ways that another person can be of assistance. Students will benefit from help-seeking in their schoolwork by better being able to articulate what it is they need assistance with in order to complete a task or understand a concept. Help-seeking is also important outside of schooling, because there are many challenges that an individual will need to overcome in their lifetime and so developing this is a lifelong skill. Students will learn and practice skills through a mix of hands-on activities, including acting out scenarios, as well as drawing and writing.
