Foundation

CAFÉ Reading Strategy

Infer and support with evidence

Have you ever read a book and assumed what the author was saying or feeling without having it actually written down? You make these assumptions using your background knowledge, clues from the story, and pictures. Authors don’t always tell the reader everything they want them to know about the story. In order to better comprehend, children must learn to be detectives and look for clues in the text to understand the meaning of the story. Learning to infer and support with evidence is a strategy used by good readers to better understand what the author is saying.

How can you help your child with this strategy at home?

1. Read to your child and model your thinking as you read. Modelling is one of the most effective teaching strategies.

2. Have your child “read” a wordless picture book. Using the pictures to tell stories helps with the inferring process.

3. When reading with your child, ask some of the following questions:

• Can you explain why the character acted this way?
• How do you think the author might feel about (the character)?
• Think about the setting… what details can you add?
• Figure out explanations for these events.
• What clues can you find in the pictures?

Remind your child that a book detective goes slowly, looks for clues, and uses those clues to support their thinking.

Scaffolded Literacy—Reading to Write

This term, our focus text is Bob Graham’s How to Heal a Broken Wing. The students have been looking at sentence structure and how authors cleverly use words and language to convey meaning and emotion. Applying Bob’s sentence structure, here are some of the wonderfully descriptive sentences that students have come up with:

Investigative Math Unit 

Students had lots of fun partaking in our Charlie and the Chocolate Factory investigative unit. This unit required them to learn about money, measurement and shapes and problem solve to buy fittings for their own chocolate factory.

Numeracy Focus: Addition and Subtraction Strategies

We are currently working through our core Term Four unit ‘Addition and Subtraction Strategies’. Strategies we are focusing on are ‘counting on’ from the largest number for addition and ‘counting back’ for subtraction. We will also be encouraging the automatic recall of addition/subtraction number facts, such as the 'friends of ten' (i.e. 6+4=10 and 10-8=2), doubles (i.e. 4+4=8 or 8-4=4) and ‘friends of twenty’ (i.e. 13+7=20 and 20-5=15).

STEM

This term’s STEM unit is entitled Topsy Turvy Tales. In this unit, students will be working in teams to recreate a much loved fairy tale. They are currently creating three-dimensional diorama backdrops and characters out of recyclable materials. We cannot wait to share with you the final products!

Swimming Program

Thank you to all the parents who supported us during the two week Foundation Swimming Program at the Toby Haenan Swim Centre. It was a fun fortnight and the students should be so proud of their behaviour and effort. Whilst they were tired, they continued to be their own boss and represented the Chelsea Heights PS values of Respect, Responsibility and Cooperation.

Our Chesterfield Farm Excursion

The Foundation Team

Natalie Peacock, Paris Hargreaves, Emily Neophitou and Sara Gittus