Foundation 

Dear Foundation Families,

  It was so lovely catching up with most of you for the recent learning conversations – thank you for your time and input! Let's keep the communication open. Please don’t hesitate to get in touch if you have any questions or updates. Our student this fortnight have been showing high levels of empathy for everyone in our space. 

Through the lens of Belonging (our whole school theme this term) students read the story You Belong Here. As a group we discussed this idea of belonging. What it means and places where we belong. Over the sessions, students identified what belonging looks like in our classroom. Key points they identified were: 

We listen to everyone, 

We all play together, 

We all help out, 

We care for everyone,

We all look out for each other. 

Students traced their hand print for our classroom display, we all belong. This is so we can be reminded how each of us belong in our classroom. 

Swimming Last Week of Term

To end the term, students will be participating in a five-day swimming program (31st March-4th April). We will be leaving school around 11:20 ready for their lesson at 12. For the swimming program students will require their bathers, towel, goggles and thongs. An additional bag for all their swimming things might be helpful. Students will have time to change into their bathers prior to leaving or they may wish to wear them under their school clothes, which ever suits them. After swimming, students will change back into their school clothes and will spend the remaining time over in the stadium at the pool while the other group have their lesson and then return to school at 2pm. Students will have recess before they leave for swimming and take their lunch boxes with them to the pool. You might want to pack a few extra snacks as swimming always seems to make them a bit hungrier.

If you have any further questions or concerns regarding swimming, please reach out. 

Handwriting Practise 

You may have noticed a few handwriting practise sheets in your child’s reading record diary. So far, the students have learned the letters m, s, t. It would be wonderful if you could support your child at home by practising these letters and their corresponding sounds. This week, we’ve been focusing on identifying words that start with these sounds and doing sound sort activities. The students are very enthusiastic about their learning, which is fantastic to see! You may also like to discuss words that contain these sounds.

Maths:

In maths, we continue to practice counting forwards and backwards through various games like Number Knockout and Legs 11. The students are learning to connect the correct numeral to the corresponding collection of objects. We’ve been focusing heavily on the ‘teen’ numbers, emphasising the importance of reading numbers from left to right. The students have been enjoying quizzing each other and performing fun physical activities, such as  jumps, sit-ups and star jumps to reinforce their learning. 

Buddies:

We are incredibly grateful for our senior buddies, who have been doing an amazing job of guiding our younger students. Over the past fortnight, they’ve helped our Foundation students create self-portraits that reflect their likes and interests. The senior buddies took photos of the students, recorded their responses and typed up their answers for the self-portrait posters. It’s been a lovely bonding experience for everyone involved!

Caritas Australia - Project Compassion Boxes:

As we move closer to Easter, we’ve been learning about Lent and its focus on helping others through acts of kindness and almsgiving. To support this, we have a Project Compassion box in our classroom where we’ve encouraged the students to donate their spare change. Instead of purchasing a treat like a Zooper Dooper, students are thinking about how they can help others by donating what they would have spent. If you have any spare change and would like to contribute, please pass it to your child so they can add it to our Project Compassion box. Caritas Australia is an organisation that helps communities in need overseas and it’s wonderful to see the students engaging in this cause.

Some more photos from our learning this fortnight. :)

A reminder that the last day for Term 1 is Friday the 4th of April. Students will finish early at 2pm (or a little later when students return from the pool.) 

Have a beautiful weekend everyone, 

Miss Gab