Foundation

Foundation November Newsletter

Literacy

This month, our Foundation students have been boosting their reading and writing skills by practising CCVC (Consonant, Consonant, Vowel, Consonant) words. They’re learning how to break down and blend sounds in words like “stop” and “flag”—building strong foundations for reading and spelling. Working in pairs, the students practised listening carefully and writing down full sentences together. It’s been fantastic to see their confidence grow as they master these new skills!

Our Foundation students are mastering Stage 4+ heart words by identifying the tricky parts in each word, helping them recognise these words automatically. Each day, they review all their heart words and practice using them in sentences, building familiarity, confidence and sentence structure orally. 

They’re also enhancing their reading fluency, comprehension, and writing skills with our Little Learners Love Literacy texts. In addition, students have taken on the role of young researchers, exploring non-fiction texts to gather facts and practice writing information reports. It’s been an exciting journey into reading, writing, and discovering new information!

Knowledge

In our recent Knowledge Unit on Farms, students have learned numerous facts about farm animals and their products, as well as gained extensive knowledge about crops, planting, growing, and harvesting. They used this information in their writing to create factual descriptions of various farm animals. Each student became an author, producing their own non-fiction book about Farms. We were incredibly proud of their hard work and dedication, so we organised an expo where Foundation students could view each other's work, and even our Principals made a special visit.

Now, we've started our new Knowledge Unit for the term, Celebrations Around the World. Students are exploring different cultural events and understanding the significance of these celebrations. It’s been exciting for them to learn about Holi, Diwali, Eid al-Fitr, and the Festival of Sahara.

Numeracy

Foundation students have been reviewing key number concepts, including matching quantities to numerals, identifying numbers that come before and after a given number, creating collections of up to 20 and addition and subtraction. Revisiting and practising these fundamental concepts is crucial as they form the foundation of Numeracy skills. Furthermore, we explored arranging daily events in sequence from morning to afternoon and evening. Students successfully identified and described various activities associated with different times of the day. Teachers have been working hard gathering data and information which reflect on student learning. 

Social and Emotional Learning (SEL)

In SEL we have continued to explore feelings and students can now explain the difference between various feelings and how these can change in different situations. Identifying feelings assist students to label and articulate what they are experiencing, fostering greater self-awareness. 

Auslan

In Auslan students learnt  signs for many common occupations in our community. Signs we learnt were: Police, Fire Brigade, Doctor, Nurse, Vet, Ambulance, Artist, Pilot, Actor, Teacher, Truck Driver, Cleaner, Chef, Dentist, Electrician, Plumber.

On Tuesday 3rd December we are very excited to be having Auslan Education Services, our Auslan program provider visit our school.  Each class will have the an opportunity to meet and interact with a Deaf person. The team attending on the day will be a Team Leader, a Deaf team member, and an Interpreter. The Deaf team member will begin by presenting to the children about their life as a Deaf person, followed by signing with the students, and some question time. This will be a valuable incursion as this may be students’ first interaction with a Deaf person and gives them their first look at Deaf culture. Each year level will have a 30-minute session on the day.