Discovery Centre

Curriculum 

Halo semuanya - hello everyone!

What a busy week in Foundation! Our very last week where Foundation students have Wednesdays off. This week will be the very first full week of school for our Foundation students. Thank you to all families for supporting us through our Wednesday assessments, it was wonderful to spend the one on one time with each student, getting to know them. 

Last week in Literacy, students were introduced to one of the VCOP gang members Penny Punctuation, who loves all things punctuation. Students focused on beginning a sentence with a capital letter and ending a sentence with a full stop. They explored this through reading big books and finding the pattern of capital letters and full stops, as well as constructing sentences through cut and paste activities. Students focused on retelling events from a story by discussing and recording their favourite part. This helps students to develop a greater understanding of texts read. Students began to explore writing sounds they can hear in words through labelling pictures they drew. We have begun with listening to the initial sound in a word and challenging ourselves to write any other sounds, such as ending sounds.

In Maths students focused on subitising, which is where they look at a small collection of objects and find how many there are without counting by ones. Additionally students explored part-part-whole of numbers- looking at the two smaller numbers that make up a number. This was done through lots of open-ended games.

On Thursday afternoon students were very excited to attend their first Singalong with Mr Shaw. We have lots of fun songs at MPRPS that Mr. Shaw has written himself. Students learned the words and actions to the songs ‘Wombat on a Surfboard’, ‘Doodily Doo’ and the ‘School Values’ song. Thanks Mr. Shaw for hosting such a fun Singalong.

Foundation students headed outside on Friday to practise their house chants for the upcoming Twilight Sports event. Each student is in a house colour; red, blue, yellow or green and each house has their very own chant which they will perform on the night on Twilight Sports. We had a lot of fun practising - bring on Twilight Sports!

You would have noticed this week we continued to send home a book in the students orange folders each afternoon. Students are to practise reading with their families each day, then fill out their take home reading journals with the name of the book. This journal is stamped by their teacher each morning, after which students choose a new book to take home to read that night. Additionally we are sending home ‘Magic 100 Words’ booklet which helps students when they are reading and writing. Students can practise them at home with their family and when students are ready they will read them with their teacher. Once students are feeling super confident with their words, they will get a stamp. When they have 3 stamps, they will get the next level of words. Please keep these words in your child's orange folder.

Have a wonderful week,

Jessica Tossell, Brooke Henwood and Ella Gasowski

Reminders

• Twilight Sports Thursday March 3rd 5:30pm. Families are encouraged to come and have a picnic dinner while students compete in various events for their house colour. Students are encouraged to wear clothes in their house colour for the event,
• We have begun our Perceptual Motor Program (PMP). This is a fantastic program that helps students develop a wide range of skills such as fine and gross motor, balance and coordination. Please ensure your child does not wear tights as they need to remove their shoes and socks.
• Additionally for PMP we suggest students who wear a school dress to wear bike shorts over their underwear
• Orange folders go home each night and need to be returned each day with the students take-home reader and take-home reading journal.
• ‘My Words’ book has been sent home in orange folders to practise, please keep in students orange folders.

Pupil of the Week

FH: Nivetha Y -

For demonstrating your love of learning when learning our code of the day. You have been enthusiastic when sharing words that begin with different codes. Superstar effort Nivetha!

FG: Ethan L -

For using your codes to label your picture in Writing this week. You should be so proud of the way you are trying new things in the classroom. Keep it up, Ethan!

FJ: Millie B -

For demonstrating a love of learning during literacy sessions when cutting and pasting sentences together. You remembered to start your sentence with a capital letter and end it with a full stop. Well done Millie.