Foundation Learning Community News

The Foundation students have been very busy over the past few weeks as we finish off our first Semester of learning. We have had a local community walk, had a go at being mini Firefighters, and are busy creating beautiful garden spaces at the back of the Prep Hall. With all of this activity we are all ready for a short break before we start the second half of the year. Monique, Payton, Luke, Nicole and Jacinta wish all of our Preps and their families a wonderful mid-year holiday. We look forward to a jam-packed Term 3.

Literacy:

Along with meeting a host of new friends in our InitiaLit lessons we have also continuing with language experiences. Every Friday we gather together to complete an activity, which then supports our writing. Examples of our language experiences so far have been, making playdough, creating 'space sticks', learning what makes corn pop, and our very favourite - making cupcakes. We even had Christine come along to help us make the icing!

In Foundation we are constantly sharing and enjoying picture storybooks. Because we have read so many our teachers have decided to upload them to the Premiers' Reading Challenge for us, this means that all Preps have completed the Challenge and will receive a certificate from the Premier!

Numeracy:

During our maths sessions we are beginning to learn about addition. We have discussed how we are joining groups together when we add, that the number gets bigger, and ways we efficiently complete addition sums (e.g. counting on from the bigger number).

Inquiry:

Our Inquiry has been busy and exciting this term. We did a big walk to Sam Merrifield Library and had a wonderful session with the Children's' Librarian, Libby. The walk seemed much longer going back to school, but we had some very encouraging parent volunteers to help us along!

The second Firefighter visit was very exciting, we all had a turn to squirt water from the hoses, we were shown some special equipment that is used by firefighters and we were able to hear the very loud siren!

To complete our unit about Community we decided to focus on improving our school community, in particular the garden at the back of the Prep Hall where we eat our lunch and recess. All of us had the chance to choose to either join the Flower Group or the Edible Plants Group. It has been fun to work with different students and getting our hands dirty! We have weeded and removed rubbish, painted tyres to use as planters, created decorative rocks, planted flowers and seeds and are about to lobby Christine to allow us to paint the water tank. Take a look at our efforts next time you are in the school yard, I think you will agree it is a big improvement.

Thank you for all of the generous donations from our families. 

Buddies:

We have been fortunate to be able to have a Buddy Hour most weeks of this Semester. The Buddy program is such a wonderful way to support Preps when they begin school. During Term 3 our Buddies have been teaching us a range of activities to improve our hand-eye and foot-eye coordination. We have used hoops, skipping ropes and bean bags in all sorts of different ways and learnt some new skills along the way.