Foundation

100 Days of Foundation

What a wonderful time we had celebrating the first 100 days of Foundation! The costumes were fantastic, the activities were fun, the Buddies were helpful and the hot chips were delicious! It was a great way to finish Week 4, and a lovely way to recognise just how far the youngest members of the St. John's school community have come in 6 short months.

• We now know all the sounds of the alphabet and are setting our sights on digraphs- 2 letters that make one sound eg: sh, ch, th, wh, ng, ay
• From writing only our names, we can now write sentences, sound out difficult words and use our knowledge of 'tricky words' to produce simple written texts. 
• Numbers to 20 that we can use to solve addition and subtraction problems.
• From knowing only a few people, to being able to greet most of the school community by name.
• playing Math games in a considerate and sportsmanlike way and not worrying TOO much if we lose.
• holding the pencil correctly
• writing on lines (almost...)
• travelling to and from school on the bus
• not forgetting to put our lunch orders in the box on Wednesdays.

There is just so much to be proud of, and our 100 days celebration was a fabulous recognition of every achievement. And to think, we still have almost as long until we reach the end of the year!

BOOK WEEK

What a day! So much fun and so much effort that went into the costumes! Well done everyone! Special thanks to Mrs Robinson for her organisation of the week.

LITERACY

As mentioned above, we have now finished learning all the single sounds of the alphabet and move onto digraphs. Most students are reading really well, developing a fluency and expression now they have become more confident with 'cracking the code' whilst reading. Once again, and I know I sound like a broken record, I can not stress enough the  importance of regular reading at home. Daily practise gives students to refine the skills and strategies they are learning at school. It becomes very obvious, very quickly from now on the students who are given this additional time at home. The students know the sounds, but the more opportunities they get to use, decode and blend these sounds, the better their reading will become. Whilst the decodable books are getting slightly longer, it is still only a 10 minute job.  Sermon over.

Numeracy

We have investigated addition and subtraction and are now moving on to grouping and sharing (multiplication and division). This involves a lot of hands-on use of concrete materials, and the Foundation students are becoming remarkably adept at packing up quickly and finding counters and unifix blocks in far flung corners of the classroom. To support our learning we have been introduced to two new games "Closest to 10"  and "Part-Part-Grab!" from the www.lovemaths.me website. 

Number reversals are still very common in the classroom, with 3,7 and 5 leading the way. We are working on number formation regularly, but these little mistakes continue. We shall keep correcting when needed. 

RELIGION

We've begun our new unit "Let's Celebrate Creation" which is perfectly timed with Spring not too far away. In this unit students will begin to appreciate and express wonder at God’s presence throughout creation. Students will begin to understand that they have certain responsibilities to live in harmony with creation. We are going to plant seeds and watch them grow in a few week's time- something that will be an ongoing stress for my green thumbs...

The Athletics Carnival is on the calendar for Wednesday 26th August (weather permitting). Students wear their sports uniform or their sports uniform with a t-shirt for their House Colour. Our Houses are Mercy, Lourdes and Fatima (or Blue, Red and Yellow). 

GOLD team (Fatima=TRUTH) - Aahan, Archer, Albert, Jonty, Summer, Pippa

RED team (Lourdes=LOVE)- James, Ardie, Lolly, Peyton, Lucy, Abbie, Amity

BLUE team (Mercy=SERVICE)- Freya, Dusty, Aylah, Archie, Rudy, Wayde, Louie

August

Family Mass - Saturday 29th August at 6:00pm

Athletics Carnival -26th August

ON-GOING REMINDERS

1. St John's is a "No Hat, No Play" school, which means everyone is wearing their hats every day. High ponytails and hair buns can cause difficulty for some students in trying to get their hat to actually sit on their head properly. Just something to ponder when creating hairstyles in the morning.
2. Everything needs to be labelled. And this mantra will be repeated on a regular basis throughout the year. You will get sick of hearing it, we will get sick of saying it, but please make sure your child's belongings can be easily returned to them should they accidentally be misplaced.
3. Zooper Doopers are $1, Cake Raffle tickets are 50c. Both momentous events happen each Friday. 
4. Lunch Orders are every Wednesday.
5. Library visits take place on a Friday. If last week's borrowed book is not returned, a new one cannot be borrowed. 

6. Birthday invitations- Foundation is traditionally the year of Birthday Parties. We are happy to hand out invitations at school if everyone is invited, but if you choose to only invite some friends to your child's party (and we completely understand this approach) we would prefer that the invitations were shared another way. Whilst life does have the occasional disappointment, not being invited to a party is a pretty big one when you are 5 or 6 years old and we would rather the school not be the place of the upset.  

If you have any questions or queries about anything, please contact us. We have Staff Meetings after school on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, so these times are unavailable, but can make any other time work.

sredfern@sjeuroa.catholic.edu.au

phone: 57952937

Thank you,

Sally and Lisa