Foundation: Connect

Term 3

Swimming

Students have made a fantastic start to the school swimming program and should be very proud of their efforts. They have demonstrated confidence, resilience and a willingness to try new skills in the water. It has been wonderful to see students listening carefully to their instructors, following pool expectations and encouraging one another throughout each lesson. They are also becoming increasingly independent when changing and organising their belongings. Thank you to our families and volunteers for your continued support in making the program such a positive and enjoyable experience for everyone. 

Literacy

This week, students explored when to use ‘c’, ‘k’ and ‘ck’ in words. We reviewed that ‘c’ usually comes before ‘a’, ‘o’ and ‘u’, while ‘k’ commonly comes before ‘e’ and ‘i’. Students also investigated how ‘s’ can be added to a word to show more than one, such as cat → cats. We continued revising the magic ‘e’ rule, open and closed syllables, and the heart words ‘come’ and ‘there’. During dictation, students applied these spelling patterns in complete sentences, while remembering capital letters, finger spaces and full stops. 

Reading fluency remained an important focus, with students working in pairs to segment sounds, blend words and reread smoothly. 

Handwriting practice focused on correctly forming body and tail letters, including y, p, g, j and z.

Numeracy

This week, students strengthened their mathematical fluency through regular practice with number writing, subitising, ordering numbers, skip counting by tens, doubles and writing addition number sentences. Our main lessons focused on place value and developing an understanding that two-digit numbers are made up of tens and ones. Using counters, dice, ten-frames and hundreds charts, students represented numbers in different ways and practised recognising that, for example, four full ten-frames represent four tens, or 40. They also explored tally marks, created and described patterns, and applied their number knowledge through engaging partner games. These hands-on activities supported students to solve problems, explain their thinking and build confidence when working with numbers.

Have a lovely week!

Kind regards,

Alex Whittle (0A) and Kate Clark (0B)

Foundation Team