Foundation Cluster News

Thank you all for a wonderful and busy week 3. A little reminder for enjoying the winter months, we encourage gum boots for play on the oval and nature play and spare trousers as lots of children are coming back all cold wet and dirty from lunch play, it is a lot of fun. This could a good time to check all your child’s belongings are labelled.

Kimochis at Home

We have 4 very special Kimochis that are going to come for a visit on the weekend - Brave Bug, Curious Cat, Kind Lovey Dove and Active Hugs. Students have designated weekends where they will bring home a small Bug, Cat, Lovey Dove or Hugs and a book with instructions of what they will need to do. They will take the Kimochi home on a Thursday/ Friday and bring it back on the Monday. Please make sure they are taken care of and don’t get drawn on or eaten by any family pets. If you do not have a printer at home, we are happy to print for you. Thank you.

Week	Cat	Bug	Lovey Dove	Hugs
1	Nathan	Nischay	Johann	Mevik
2	Naunidh	Noahkai	Jayde	Lucy
3	Nina	Richlau	Isaac	Lucas
4	Noah	Samuel B	Hugo	Lottie
5	Nola	Samuel K	George	Joshua
6	Omeed	Sophie	Finley	Holly
7	Paul	Theodore	Eshanna	Harrison
8	Riley	Willow	Luna	Neave

Week 4 Learning Program:  

Reader’s Workshop – Building our bigger reading muscles 

 Word Study – Sounds: Digraphs (pairs of letters that represent a single sound, such as sh, ch, and th)

CVC (simple three-letter words that follow a consonant, short vowel, and consonant pattern, such as cat, dog, and sun)

CVCC words (four-letter words that follow a consonant, vowel, consonant, consonant pattern, such as tent, milk, and lamp)

Bookmaking – Spotlight session: We make our books look stupendous. All about me book (Unit of Inquiry)  

Inquiry into Maths  

Addition: simple adding numbers to 10 (2 + 8 = 10, 5 + 5 = 10)

Unit of Inquiry

Who We Are Central idea: Our identity helps us to understand our and others’ similarities, differences and emotions.

Line of inquiry 1: What makes me ‘me’ and how I am the same as, and different to others.

Line of inquiry 2: Emotions affect our behaviour, interactions, and relationships.

Line of inquiry 3: We can show understanding and respect in our relationships.

Key concepts: Causation & Responsibility

Learner profile: Communicators, Open-minded, Caring, Principled

Christian Studies:

Christian Living 

Key Idea 1: Religious beliefs and ideas shape people's thinking and actions.

Library:

Please look after our books so they are not damaged so that others can borrow them. It is important to note that no borrowing occurs if library books are not returned.

Please return books and the library bag to class on Tuesday ready for Wednesday library day.

Thank you all for your support and being avid readers with your children.

Take Home Folders:  

Take Home folders need to come to school every day. Students will need these to take home notes and any craft they make during the day. New sounds and heart words will also be placed in this folder.  

Jolly Pouch (purple pouch): Please keep the pouch in your child’s take home folder!

Your child will receive new sounds/actions in their Jolly Pouch; it is up to you whether you keep the paper in the pouch or find a safe place at home. We hope these resources are valuable for you to practice what we learn in class. When a new sound is introduced, a video will be posted on Toddle to support your child at home.

Hats: Students generally won’t need to wear a hat in Term 2 and Term 3 unless the UV index is 3 or above. These can be kept in the front pouch of their school bag, so they don’t get lost during this time.

Gumboots: During the colder months as the weather gets wetter and muddier students must wear gumboots in the nature play at break times. If your child enjoys playing in nature play, please send gumboots labelled with their name to school. These are kept in plastic bags on the children’s bag hooks by our classroom or on the shoe racks if muddy.   

Pick Up Information: 

To assist the children and teachers with end of the day procedures, we would like to know your child’s pick-up details. There is a poster inside the classroom door with pick up options. Please fill this out at your earliest convenience. We are then able to reassure your child at the end of the day. If your plans change on any given day, please ring through to the School Office and they will inform us via the ‘message’ tray of the changes, or tell us in the morning at drop off.  

Volunteers: We love having volunteers in the classroom. If you are interested in volunteering, there are a few tasks you will need to be able to help in the classroom. 

Current Working With Children Check (WWCC) 
Responding to Abuse, Harm and Neglect training (RRHAN-EC) 
Valuing Safe Communities (VSC) training; and

You can find the information here on the school website:  https://www.goldengrove.sa.edu.au/parents-community/employment-opportunities/ 

School Calendar 

https://www.goldengrove.sa.edu.au/school-life/school-calendar/ 

Please note: During teaching hours, we are unable to check emails. 

Blessings,

Brianna and Tania

Brianna Stanley: stanley.brianna@goldengrove.sa.edu.au

Tania Tenten:

tenten.tania@goldengrove.sa.edu.au

Students can be very proud of how they are settling into school! I continue to enjoy getting to know each of them and their interests. We are continuing to build our confidence with ‘Whole body listening’, and being able to ‘look, say okay and do it right away’ when asked to do something. Naturally, students are very tired, and so I encourage you to give them a rest on Wednesdays if possible. Please contact me if Wednesdays do not work, as we are happy to arrange an alternative.

Wednesday Rest Day

We highly encourage you to give your child a rest day on Wednesdays during the first five weeks of term. The purpose of having rest days is to build up children’s learning stamina, as we consider that many of them are used to having three days of kindy, which is different to five days of Foundation learning. At the beginning, children can feel very tired and experience big emotions after just three full days of learning. The rest day will help them to slowly get used to being at school for five full days. They could play or spend some time with you doing something together. It is not a day where they do any work. Your child’s wellbeing means a lot to us, and we want them to continue to have a smooth transition into Foundation. 

Late pick up

If ever you are running late to pick your child up, I will walk them to the ‘Kiss and Drop’ area (outside the front gates) after school. Leadership supervise this area.

Hats

Please ensure your child has a school hat in their bag as they will need to wear them at recess and lunchtime if the UV is above 3. They can be purchased from the uniform shop.

Toddle

An invite to join Toddle was emailed out during the holidays. I apologise that some students received the wrong paper invite in their take home bag. If you are still having trouble connecting, please contact the front office. We post important reminders, student learning, photos/videos and assessments on this platform.

Family photo for classroom

I would love to create a display of family photos in our classroom. Please send a photo through to my email address and I will print it off. If your child is between homes, you are more than welcome to send in two for display.

Library

Students have been given a white Library bag. We visit the library weekly on Tuesdays. Foundation children can borrow two books and keep them for two weeks. I encourage you to read these books with your child weekly so that they can bring them back and have two new books every week to read.

Assembly and Chapel

We will not be attending assembly and chapel for the first few weeks to give your children time to become comfortable with being at school first. I will let you know when our first time attending will be in the coming weeks.

Blue Take Home Folder

All students have now been given a blue take home folder. They are to come to school every day. In these folders you will find notes sent home, craft students have made, and later in the term, sounds we have been learning that you can practise with them.

Nature Play

We are lucky to have a wonderful nature play area at our school. As it can be wet and muddy during Winter, we ask that if your children are wanting to play in this area at recess and lunchtime that they come to school with gumboots.

Weekly timetable

Monday	2:30pm Assembly Canteen: Qkr orders before 9am
Tuesday	Library borrowing Dance and Drama specialist lesson P.E. specialist lesson
Wednesday	Japanese specialist lesson Canteen: Qkr orders before 9am
Thursday	STEM specialist lesson even weeks
Friday	8:50am Chapel Music specialist lesson Canteen: Qkr orders before 9am

Learning program:  Week 4

We continue to consolidate the routines we have been learning throughout the first three weeks.

We will continue some alphabet recognition activities and start experimenting with letter formation. Students were very excited about bookmaking and will continue exploring this.

We will start exploring the numbers 1-10 and do some counting activities.

For Christian Studies, we continue learning about who Jesus is through reading some stories.

Mindfulness

Every week, we will be learning a strategy we can use to keep our body calm. I encourage you to practise these strategies every week with your child at home. It has been wonderful to see the children use these strategies themselves without prompting from me. During Week 3 we have been practising our flower breathing.

Flower breathing

Hold your hand up facing you.

Breathe in through your nose as if you are smelling the flowers.

As you blow out through your mouth, put a finger down one at a time like the petals blowing off the flower.

Blessings for a wonderful week,

Ellen Zimmer

zimmer.ellen@goldengrove.sa.edu.au

Date	Week	Assembly Sharing
10/8	4	3/4R
17/8	5	Foundation T
24/8	6	5/6FS
Thu 3/9	7	1/2 cluster
7/9	8	2/3T
14/9	9	3/4H
21/9	10	Foundation Z & TK Award

Date	Week	Chapel Leader
7/8	3	Joel
14/8	4	2/3T
21/8	5	1/2HB
28/8	6	1/2AK
Mon 31/8	7	Pastor Kevin
11/9	8	Joel
18/9	9	Mr. Salisbury
25/9	10	Mr. Wallace

Around the School

Assembly - Term 3

This is why we Pong!