Classroom News
Foundation

Term 2, Week 2

Welcome back everyone! The Foundation students have settled back into classroom routines. Each morning our students walk in and get ready for a fun day of learning.

We have an exciting term planned with many fantastic learning experiences.

Swimming

Next week, we begin our swimming program, please let us know if you have any concerns regarding your child. We welcome families to come along to the pool and watch their child, however there will be no parent helpers in change rooms except in particular circumstances that have been discussed with classroom teachers beforehand. Please use this week to practise and encourage your child to get dressed and dry themselves independently.

It would be a good idea to ensure clothing is labelled with your child's name.

Students will need to wear their bathers under their clothes when they arrive at school in the morning.

Monday 29th April – Friday 3rd May

Session 1 12.15pm-12.55pm Foundation G and Foundation C

Session 2 12.55pm-1.35pm Foundation S and Foundation T

Literacy

Our mentor texts this term will include a mix of fiction and non-fiction texts. We will be looking at the differences between the text types, and the features of non-fiction texts. We will explore a range of new vocabulary in these texts.

Our Writer's Workshop begins each week with a focus on weekend recounts- this is a great chance for you to have a conversation with your child about all the fun things they got up to on the weekend so they can return to school ready to share. We are also focusing on brainstorming ideas from a range of picture inspirations. Using these ideas, we are working on the conventions of forming sentences, including capital letters, finger spaces between words and a full stop at the end of the sentence. Students will work towards writing a super sentence to explore their understanding of the texts we have read.

In Reader’s Workshop we are looking at a new mentor text each week. With these books we will make predictions, visualise, make connections, explore new knowledge and vocabulary, in both fiction and non-fiction texts. We continue to investigate decoding strategies using picture clues, stretching sounds, blending and recognising sight words.

Our phonics focus has been bumped up a notch, we are now looking at two letters each week! We are continuing with cued articulation to learn our sounds. Investigating each letter of the alphabet by listening to the sound, forming the correct letter shape with whiteboards, playdough, and chalk. Each morning begins with Heggerty’s Phonemic Awareness Program. The children have enjoyed investigating sounds, rhymes and word parts through this fun and engaging program.

Numeracy

This term, our focus will be Number and Measurement. We continue with our focus on counting accurately and efficiently, as well as understanding the place value of numbers. In Fluency we will be looking at ‘teen numbers' and use hands-on materials to understand the place value of these numbers in regards to ‘tens and ones’.

In Measurement we will be using informal units to measure Length, Mass and Capacity. We will provide our students with engaging lessons, to understand these concepts. We use various informal units such as unifix, counters, craft sticks to measure, count, and compare different objects.

At home, please continue to support your child in mathematics by using a pack of playing cards or dice to continue counting from one- or two-digit numbers, adding numbers together and putting numbers in order. There are always real life opportunities to explore numbers in the real world such as signs, shopping, even working out cutlery and plates needed to set the table at home.

Inquiry

This week we began our Inquiry of work in Geography, with a focus on weather conditions. We have begun to look at the weather in Blackburn each day and talk about how it might feel when it's a certain degree, or what clothing we might wear. Following this, we are looking wider in different parts of the world and the weather conditions there. The second half of the term, our focus will be the areas around us. We will explore places in our community and the connections we have to them. In preparation for this, it would be a good idea to have discussions with your children about the places you visit such as swimming, and talk about what suburbs they are in.

Thank you,