Foundation 

Important Dates

Monday 4th - Friday 8th September - Parent Teacher Interviews

Thursday 7th September - Jollybops Indigenous Science Incursion 

Friday 8th September – Science Expo

Monday 11th September - Curriculum Day (student free day)

Friday 15th September – Last day of school – 2.30pm pick up

Monday 2nd October – First day of Term 4

Late arrivals at school

A reminder that if you arrive late to school, you MUST sign your child in at the office then walk with them to their classroom. We are frequently in places other than our own classroom in the mornings, which means there is no teacher in the room to let your child know where to go. The bell rings at 8.57am each morning and we find that students who are lined up and ready when the bell rings are more settled and confident coming into school.

Science Week at VPS

The Science Expo is on Friday 8th September. Parents and carers are invited to come and experience each year level’s exploration of science and associated displays. The Expo will be open for families to view from 3pm until 5pm in the school stadium. 

Maths – Addition Strategies

We know many students have done a great job of memorising addition facts either this year or prior to attending school. Memorised facts such as ‘friends of 10’ and ‘doubles’ are helpful, but we are finding that often our students are not attempting to solve ‘unknown’ addition problems and instead guessing or saying they do not know the answer. This is happening with students who can count to very high numbers and may even know multiplication facts, even with simple single digit addition problems such as 5+4. 

In the classroom we encourage students to use a strategy to solve addition problems, rather than rely on memory. Some strategies we are focused on:

Counting all – where students use fingers or blocks to model the problem e.g. 4+5, get 4 counters and 5 counters then count them all.

Counting on – where students lock the larger number in their brain then count on the smaller number of times. E.g. lock in 5 then count on “6, 7, 8, 9”. Your child will usually need to use their fingers or counters to keep track.

If you want to help with this at home, you can ask your child to solve some single digit addition problems and EXPLAIN WHAT THEIR BRAIN DID! This helps take the emphasis off just giving an answer and places the importance on how they did it.

Book Week 

Buddies 

Author’s Studies

Maths - Measuring with informal units

The students have been learning about measuring with informal units such as blocks, counters, paperclips etc. As well as how to order items from shortest to longest. Here are some pics from our recent maths lessons.

Staff vs. Student Footy Match

Some of the preps had a lovely time watching the staff versus students football match on the Vermont Reserve. It is safe to say that the preps definitely added to the good vibes with their cheering and overall excitement. 

What's on in the classroom

Literacy

• Letter formation practise using dotted thirds
• Continuing to revise and learn new special friends sounds
• Writing about our toys

Maths

• Comparing the mass of objects
• Using balance scales to measure mass in informal units e.g. blocks
• Division and fractions
• Ordinal numbers

Inquiry

• Getting our toys ready for the science expo
• Finishing toy design booklets

Show and Tell