Foundation: Connect

Reflection

Over the last few weeks, we have been completing some Literacy and Numeracy assessments. Foundation teachers sent home some samples of students writing which we hope you enjoyed looking over. These were an example of the picture prompts we have been using in class to encourage them to explore as writers and write full sentences.

We covered our very 1st digraph is ‘ch’ for chair which came up a few times in our writing over the last week which was very exciting to see it being applied immediately. In Week 8 we will be focusing on ‘sh’ for ship so look out for this next.

Jumping forward to Week 9 & 10

In Numeracy, we have been beginning to look at Money. Specifically, we are looking at the purposes of it, wants vs needs, the different features of it such as colour & shape and to see how it helps us in day to day life in the world around us. We have also linked this into our problem solving for the week to explore different ways to reach a specific target or amount. You might like to play a game of 'shops' of some kind over the coming weeks and see if your child can tell you anything new about Australian money.

In Literacy, we are looking at the 'sh' digraph. Just in case you are not sure, we refer to it as to letters working together to make one sound. This is incorporated in our fluency passages this week. We are also continuing to focus of picture prompt writing, with an increased focus of boundary punctuation. This involves a capital letter to start the sentence and a full stop to end. We will also be encouraging students to read back their writing to ensure it makes sense and to see if anything might be missing.

Our new heart words over the next fortnight are as and like. We encourage students to write these out three times, saying the letter names as they write the letter. A reminder that heart words can't be sounded out so we need to learn the tricky part, off by heart!

We are also going to sink our teeth into a mentor text this week. It is called 'Shhh! Little mouse' by Pamela Allen where we will predict what it is about and look out for any rhyming words. We also take a look into the use of the exclamation mark and how it changes the way we read the title. We will encourage them to explore using this in their future writing.

If you want to review some letters & sounds with your child at home, here are 3 to focus on if you wish. Some students have found these to be more of a challenge so we will review these in the classroom too.

Take Care, 

From the Prep Team

Alex, Kate, Isabella and Rhiannon.