Foundation Report

We are more than half way through the final term for our Foundation students. Teachers are continuing to conduct assessments in preparation for writing the Term 4 reports. It is a rewarding time for us all to celebrate our students’ efforts and growth, we are so proud of how much the students have progressed and achieved so far. At the tail end of the term, we will be preparing the students for their transition into Grade 1, with the whole school Transition program, where students will meet their next year’s teacher and grade.

We have been inquiring into the big idea of ‘Toys in the past and present’, the students did a wonderful job delivering their oral presentations on their parents and grandparents favourite toys, as part of their project. The ‘Toys Over Time’ Incursion was a hit with the students, they participated in hands on, play based learning, with rotations of several stations with various types of toys. They learnt about stories, facts, technology and design of a range of iconic toys.

As part of investigating games in the present, Foundation students have been learning to use the program Scratch Jnr on the ipads. They have been developing their coding skills to make simple interactive games.

In an upcoming Assembly on Wednesday 20th December students will be discussing what they have explored in Inquiry and performing one of the clap games that they have learnt. It would be great if you all can make it to see our amazing performers on stage.

In our Phonics program, we have been working through the short and long vowel sounds and consonant digraphs such as ck, sh, th, ch, wh, ng and nk. The students have been learning about the magic e/silent e rule. Please ask your child to tell you all about the ‘magic e’, the students have been going extremely well with reading and spelling magic e words. 

This term we have been responding to fairy tales as well as fractured fairy tales. Students have continued to work on developing their letter formation, sentence structure, spelling strategies and use of simple punctuation, when writing. We have introduced Rocket Writing into our weeks, which the students have thoroughly enjoyed, responding to a picture prompt and writing their own narrative. 

We have spent the last few weeks of Numeracy lessons covering simple Division, using drawings, manipulatives and verbal stories to model situations that involve sharing. We are also learning about Money, students have been identifying Australian coins and notes and their value, using toy money to pay for items in play situations.

We have worked on Capacity, the students have had lots of fun in the sandpit using units of measure such as measuring jugs and containers to compare what holds more and what holds less. We have also been covering Time, in relation to naming and ordering the Days of the Week and sequencing events in a day, we will soon be introducing telling the time to the hour.