Classroom News Foundation

What a fantastic start to Term 3, for our Foundation students! They’ve settled back into school routines and are eager to begin learning each day. Our focus for this term is Fairy Tales, we started off this term with an amazing Fairy Tale themed incursion. Students were transported into an upside Fairy Tale Land, the cats were squeaking and the dragons blew everything but fire!

Maddie from FT summed it up perfectly in her snapshot writing after the incursion:

“Today we went on an adventure. Fairy Tale Land was upside down! The dragons breathed water! The cats went squeak! To get to Fairy Tale Land, we went through a tunnel. We each got a house. The dress-ups were soft. I wonder why we each had a house. I wonder why we had dress-ups, not just act. We got to put a thing in the pot. The villains turned Fairy Tale land upside down. Then we went back through the tunnel. After we went back to class.”

The incursion was only the start of our fun filled term. Coming up in this term, we have the Daylight Disco, 100 Days of School, Book Fun Day, Patch cooking and of course our Buddy sessions that both Foundies and Year 6 students love!

Literacy

We continue Reader’s Workshop with our focus mentor texts based on Fairy tales such as Little Red Riding Hood, The Three Little Pigs, Jack and the Beanstalk just to name a few. We look at Comprehension through a variety of strategies such as inferring characters’ feelings, making text connections, questioning and retelling the story using beginning, middle, and end. Students will also continue to track their thinking in reading with sticky notes.

In Writer’s Workshop, we explore writing for different purposes as well as looking at the specific language features. This term students will learn how to edit their writing. They will begin to self-correct, noticing punctuation, correct spelling of high frequency words, and adding or deleting words in their writing. Students will also begin publishing their work for their Writer’s Gift, which will come home at the end of the year. Teachers continue to work with students to develop each student’s goals.

In our Spelling sessions, we will be investigating diagraphs such as; sh, ch, th, ph and wh. We will look at patterns in words with rimes and onsets. Each student has their own list of high frequency words, we encourage them to learn to spell the words correctly and use this knowledge in their writing.

Numeracy

What an exciting start to our Maths this term. We have incorporated our Fairy Tale unit into our Numeracy lessons where we can. Our first task was to design a path for Little Red Riding Hood to get to Nanna’s House. The students have been using Blue bots to code and track using direction and locations skills. Throughout the term, we will continue with Fluency incorporating Counting. Other topics throughout the term include Shape, Patterns, Place Value, Subtraction and Time.

Integrated

This term for Integrated, our focus is STEM (Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics), where the students will work through the design process to create a variety of objects. The students will design and plan their objects, and use recycled materials to make their design come to life. During this process, students will investigate how an object moves depending on size and shape, a push or a pull affects or how an object moves or changes shape. We invite families to come along in Week 5 to assist students with their watercraft.

Perceptual Motor Program

PMP begins this Friday; this is such an important program to help develop students' fine and gross motor skills. We cannot run this program without your help, and thank all our volunteers.

Respectful Relationships

Included in the Victorian Curriculum is the teaching of Respectful Relationships, where we aim to embed a culture of respect and equality across our entire school community. Please find the link below. https://www.vic.gov.au/respectful-relationships

If you would like any further information, please see your child’s teacher.

A busy but fun term ahead!

Thank you for your support,

Vicky, Louise and Kirsten