Foundation News

Dear Foundation Parents and Guardians,

Welcome to Week 7 of Term 4!

As we approach the final weeks of the term, it has been wonderful to see our students continuing to grow, develop new skills, and take increasing ownership of their learning. Their confidence and independence are shining through every day.

Learning Focus

English

Students have made great progress with learning the basic code that supports reading and writing. Recently, we have begun exploring more complex code, including digraphs where two letters make one sound, for example, /oa/, /or/ and /oo/. On their whiteboards, students practised writing words such as soap, corn, and moon, and extended this learning by writing full sentences using these words. Students are also showing stronger phonemic awareness by identifying blends, digraphs, and individual sounds, and applying this knowledge when reading and writing. We have continued building fluency through regular practice of blending, changing sounds in a word to create new words, and continuing to introduce and use high-frequency words such as live, there, ask, and were. Our Talk for Writing unit on Jack and the Beanstalk has been a highlight. Through learning the story, students have strengthened their vocabulary, comprehension, imagination, and early writing skills by imitating and innovating parts of the tale.

Knowledge

Over the past few weeks, we have been exploring the humanities and geography unit “Let’s Explore Our World.” Students have immersed themselves in learning about Europe, North America, and South America by using world maps, non-fiction texts, videos, and hands-on activities.

Students made personal connections to their learning by:

Creating their own mini world that represents themselves in Australia
Making beefeater soldiers
Building the Eiffel Tower from playdough
Collaboratively colouring Italian landmarks

We look forward to continuing our journey around the world in the coming weeks.

Maths

Students have recently shown strong understanding of addition and subtraction. Using hands-on materials, they explored how collections can be added together and how taking one part away shows what remains. Students also represented their understanding through number bonds and drawings. We have recently began another topic, Solid Shapes, where students have identified and explored shapes within our environment, named and identified properties of 3D shapes, as for instance, sphere, cone, cube and cylinders.

Reminders

Last day of Term 4: Friday 19 July. Further details will be shared shortly
Library books: A friendly reminder that library books should have been returned, so we kindly ask that outstanding library books are to be returned to your child’s classroom teacher
Fruit snack: Another friendly reminder that, if possible, this is in addition to lunch and snack. This fruit is eaten throughout the day or as a brain break to allow students to feel recharged and focus between lessons
Pick Up and Drop Off: Please continue encouraging your child to enter the classroom independently. This helps build confidence and responsibility as they prepare to move from Foundation to Grade One!
School hats: Please ensure your child has their school hat each day for outdoor play and sun protection

Home Learning Ideas

To support your child’s ongoing learning at home, you may like to:

Practise writing words using letters and sounds learned in class
Have your child write their name using a capital letter followed by lowercase letters
Encourage reading and ask questions after reading (e.g., Who were the characters? What was the setting?)
Practise counting and writing numerals from 0–20

Thank you for your ongoing support. If you have any questions, please feel free to speak with your classroom teacher.

Warm regards, The Foundation Team