Foundation

LITERACY

This term we revised the Stage 1-4 sounds and focused on the vowels - Aa, Ee, Ii Oo and Uu when making the short vowel sound. We have continued to work on our abilities to blend cv and cvc words together and our comprehension about what we are reading. 

We have also introduced our new focus sound  - ff, ss, ll, zz words. We add these at the end of words that contain one-syllable that have a short vowel. When exploring this we have been engaging in a range of experiences including planting grass seeds which the children were particually excited for. 

NUMERACY

During numeracy sessions we revised addition strategies such as count all, count on and part-part-whole to 10. 

We introduced numbers 11 to 15 through counting, reading, making, ordering and modelling. We have used a range of hands on materials (unifix, toys, counters etc) to support our learning. When talking about teen numbers we have also had a big focus on the pronunciation and building students understanding that they are ten and some more. 

INQUIRY

Our Inquiry topic for this term is Development of Resilience (Recognising problems or challenges). This week we have been discussing Problem Solving independently. We discussed the types of problems we can solve independently and what problems are too big to be solved and need support from others (friends, teachers, parents).

Discuss with your child about what problems might occur at home and at school. Think about what might be big problem (need help form and adult) and what might be a small problem (something the can fix by themselves).

SEL (Social Emotional Learning)

This week we have been discussing Growth Mindset and the secret about the brain. We used a video about mojo on Class Dojo - http://vid.ly/3c0x2k

We talked about how our brain is like a muscle, if we exercise our muscles, they get bigger and stronger. The same thing happens with our brain. If we work on hard tasks, our brain gets stronger and smarter as well.

In week 2,  we have learned about how music impacts our mood.  We discussed our mood before and after listening to a range of songs and dancing along to music. Talk to your child about how music or dancing impacts on their mood and share your experiences with them too.

Things to remember:

• Homework goes home on Mondays and comes back to school on Fridays.
• Families are welcome to come to our cohort and school assemblies on Fridays at 2:30. Cohort assemblies are held in the large Grade 1/2 space (through the blue door), and the school assemblies will be held outside under the COLA (unless otherwise advised).
• As the weather is becoming cooler, students are encouraged to bring/wear warm coats/jackets, mittens/gloves, beanies or earmuffs outside.
• Please ensure your child has fruit, a snack, and lunch as well as a water bottle.
• Lunch orders - Please ensure all lunch orders are placed in the lunch order basket at the beginning of the day. Occasionally, students have forgotten to place lunch orders in the basket and have had an emergency lunch provided.
• Keep up the positive after-school routines (homework, dinner conversations, bedtime).
• Don't forget - School begins at 8:35am daily. Students that attend after 8:50am will need to sign in at the office.

Things you can work on at home:

• Letter and sound recognition (recognising upper and lowercase letters and their most common sound) for all letters of the alphabet.
• Heart word recognition (recognising explicitly taught words) - My, my, The, the, I, Me, me, like, can, to, so, go, was, we, she, he, do, of, are, too, for, her, see, say, day, into, you.
• Reading a shared book every night focusing on concepts of print (identifying the front cover, a word, a letter, 1:1 finger pointing, talking about the story and using specific vocabulary)
• Fine motor activities – using playdoh, cutting, threading – to strengthen hand muscles
• Build and write taught CV (consonant vowel) no, go, do, to, VC (vowel consonant), is, am on, up, and CVC (consonant vowel consonant) words, cat, met, top, pit, nut etc
• Having nightly dinner conversations with the family (talk about the day)
• Have your child help out in the kitchen by measuring ingredients when you are making meals, and counting items that are going in the basket at the shops. This will assist in developing counting skills
• Look at some of the information provided under the Literacy, Numeracy and SEL/Inquiry headings and review these tasks to reinforce learning.