Term 3 in Foundation

Literacy

This term the Foundation students will continue to immerse themselves in the PLD program. They will expand their knowledge of how to build words using different sounds together and learn how to grapheme map CVC and CCVC words. They will continue to work on their blending and segmenting skills, to develop their encoding skills when writing unknown words. A variety of digraphs such as ‘sh’ and ‘ch’ will continue to be explicitly taught.

This term students will begin to focus on spelling words and participate in a variety of games and hands on activities to visually represent their words. Dictation will continue to be a weekly activity, where students will be exposed to the same decodable passage each day to build their reading fluency. They will then have an opportunity to write some of their passage through structured dictation sessions. Students will continue to be exposed to several texts where they will explore a variety of new vocabulary words and how we can use these in our reading, writing and speaking.

In Writing, students will continue to focus on their encoding skills by joining sounds together to create words. They will further develop their sentence writing skills by focussing on their individual goals such as; using a capital letter at the start of a sentence and a full stop at the end, adding more detail by including a when, where and adjectives, and using finger spaces. Students will expand their understanding of how to write a correct sentence and will explore the use of conjunctions because, but and so.

The Oral Language topic this term is Retells. Students will retell information based on events that happened the day before. They will add detail to their retell by including when it happened and explaining what they did 1st, 2nd and last.

Mathematics

In Mathematics this term, Foundation students will develop their knowledge of number names and sharing, working with numbers to 20 and beyond. They will link number names with their numerals and explore how to make equal shares. They will explore aspects of measurement by continuing to learn the days of the week and how to read and interpret a calendar. They will explore o’clock times on both analogue and digital clocks. Students will revise 2D shapes and explore 3D shapes in our environment. Students will learn mathematical concepts using concrete materials, games hands on activities and open-ended tasks.

Inquiry

Foundation students will partake in two Inquiry topics this term. In topic one ‘The Olympics,’ students will explore the similarities and differences between Ancient and Modern Day Olympics, the Paralympics and why the torch and opening ceremonies are so symbolic. They will create their own Potato Olympian and compete in a Potato Olympics. Our second unit is titled ‘My Country: Bunurong.’ Students will discover how Indigenous Australians continue to use the land in our local community in traditional ways. They will explore bush tucker, Indigenous art and symbols, dreamtime stories and the history of our local area. Students will also celebrate NAIDOC week by completing a mural and participating in a yarn circle.

Micah Webb, Alex Chambers & Teag Pohlner