Foundation Unit

Now that it's week 5, the Foundation students have settled into the routines of Woodend Primary School and we have been able to really explore some more academic elements of the classroom. We absolutely love seeing the students’ enthusiasm for learning and gaining new knowledge. We can’t wait to watch the continued growth of the Foundation students. 

In our phonics lessons, we have now explicitly taught the students 12 letters (s,a,t,p,i,n,m,d,g,o,c,k), their sounds and how to write these using the correct letter formation. We have also been practising the cued articulation for the 26 single letter sounds. 

During reading lessons, we continue to practice pointing to words as we read, but are also showing the students how to get their mouth ready for the first sound in the word. Students have increased their knowledge about concepts of print and are searching for their magic words whilst looking through texts. 

For writing, we have been using sentence stems to write sentences about what we can do. Students used the sentence stem ‘I can…’ and then chose something that they could do to write about, recording any sounds they could hear in their chosen word. 

Maths has been all about representing numbers to 10 and how it can be represented in many different ways (tens frames, tally marks, dots that can be easily subitised). We have also been practising writing these numerals and matching a collection of that size to the numeral. 

We are excited to begin our inquiry project on families and communities. In class, students have been busy drawing a 5 star drawing of their family, as well as a drawing of a community that they belong to. A big thank you to all the families who have already sent their child’s teacher the milestone photos.

Also just a friendly reminder that students' reader bags (blue book bag) need to be brought to school every day. Students change their readers daily and may receive new ‘Magic Words’, however we are only able to send these home via the reader bags. 

Next week the Foundation students will commence their full weeks of learning, attending all 5 school days. Students will get to experience their first whole school assembly on the Wednesday afternoon. If your child is receiving a values award at any assembly during the year, your child’s teacher will contact you directly to invite you to attend. 

Foundation Teachers

Libby Cannon (PLC), Bree Smith (PBS)