Foundation

Literacy

Within our literacy sessions the Foundation students are currently learning about the letters, j, q, v, r, z and e. Students have been using these and previously learnt sounds to read and write consonant - vowel - consonant words. Within our writing sessions we have been writing Information Reports about different types of animals, linking it directly to the letter of the week. Our students have been encouraged to use finger spaces between words, use a capital letter for the first letter of their sentence and sound out each word using their 'phoneme fist'. 

Within reading sessions, students have been exploring answering and asking questions about a text. We have explored what a question is in comparison to a statement, and focused on asking and answering questions related to the 5 W's, who, what, where, when and why. Furthermore, students have also been exploring the different parts of a book including the title, the author and the blurb. 

Numeracy

We have started to explore 'location'. Within this topic, we have been supporting the students to describe the position of themselves and objects in relation to other people and things. We have been exploring the terms next to, on, behind, in front of, under, inside and outside. 

We have also started exploring addition with a focus on part - part - whole with numbers up to 10 and using the count all strategy to combine the collections. We will continue this topic as the term progresses and introduce the count-on strategy and solving sums using number lines. Students have also been developing their number awareness daily when practising counting forwards and backwards starting from different starting points and writing the numbers 0-9 ensuring that they are facing the right direction. 

Buddies

We met with our buddies recently for a literacy based activity. Our students worked alongside their buddy to type of 'heart words' and some cvc words we have learnt in class. The Grade 6 students helped us to find the letters, to change the size and font of our writing and find a picture to match our cvc words. 

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).
• 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) with a particular focus on the letters Mm Ss Ff Aa Tt Pp Cc Ii Bb Hh Nn Oo Dd Gg Ll Vv Yy Rr Ee Qq Zz Jj
• 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
• 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.