Foundation Unit

The Foundation students continue to amaze us with how much they are learning in the classroom. For the past fortnight, we have been focusing on our inquiry topic of The Weather and how it impacts our daily lives. We have also explored the concepts of ‘day’ and ‘night’, introducing students to the Indigenous Australians’ interpretation of the stars and constellations. Students studied constellations such as Bun-ya (known to some as the Southern Cross) and how this is interpreted as a possum who ran away to hide from Tchingal, the emu. Students then created their own drawing of a constellation, based on Australian wildlife. More information on the constellations we explored, can be found on the Museums Victoria website. (https://museumsvictoria.com.au/scienceworks/plan-your-visit/melbourne-planetarium/fact-sheets/first-peoples-of-australia-astronomy)

During our Reading lessons, we have been exploring non-fiction texts about weather and the seasons and learning to extract the key topic words from the text. The Foundation students have done an excellent job of organising their thoughts to ensure that only the most important information from the text is included in their summaries. Whilst reading, the students have been creating word lists about all the weather types of each season. 

We are very proud of the writing our students have produced over the last two weeks as well. Students drafted a sentence or two on the types of weather in Summer, Autumn, Winter and Spring, using the key topic words collected during our reading lessons. This week, we have experimented with a published piece about each season and the students have become authors and illustrators by making their very own ‘Seasons’ book. 

We continue to encourage students to form their letters correctly during handwriting and dictation lessons. Students practise the correct entry and exit points of letters and experiment with sizing and formation as they write sentences. Our new ‘sky, grass, dirt’ writing books are helpful in this process, and we are very proud of the Foundation students’ persistence and resilience when using their new books.

Last week, students explored the concept of money and Australian coins. We practiced adding coins to ‘pay’ for various items in the classroom. Students were exposed first to $1 and $2 coins, then progressed to working with 5, 10, 20 and 50 cents. 

This week, we have explored the concept of subtraction. Students have really enjoyed creating ‘number stories’ where animals, people or objects are taken away from an imagined scenario. Using creative background scenes, students used concrete materials to imagine their own scenarios, such as ‘There were 5 cars on the road, and three drove away. How many are left on the road?’ With a partner, students have been taking it in turns to solve each other's number stories. 

Finally, a huge thank you to parents and families for assisting the Foundation students with their amazing Book Week costumes last week. The students (and teachers!) had such a fun day and the students were so proud of their amazing costumes. We loved reading many of the shortlisted books throughout the day, including a wonderful book called ‘One Little Dung Beetle,’ where we identified all of the precise verbs in preparation for the poetry unit we are beginning to explore. Thank you so much to everyone who was able to attend the open classroom. The students are so proud of the beetles they made, and the teachers very much appreciated the help of family members who helped to cut out all those little legs! 

Foundation Teachers

Libby Cannon (PLC), Bree Smith (PBS)