Thursday 24 May 2018

Foundation Newsletter: Term 2 Week 6

Foundation Newsletter: Term 2 Week 6
 
Connecting with the Preps

What a busy and exciting fortnight! Especially Education Week! This week the children - and the entire school - participated in the National Simultaneous Storytime (NSS), an annual campaign that aims to encourage more young Australians to read and enjoy books. Every year a picture book, written and illustrated by an Australian author and illustrator is read simultaneously in libraries, schools, pre-schools, childcare centres, family homes, bookshops and many other places around the country. This year's chosen book, Hickory Dickory Dash written by Tony Wilson and illustrated by Laura Wood, was watched on the wonderful Story Box website and enjoyed by the children. They also loved making a clock complete with moving hands and a 'mobile mouse' with the assistance of their buddies. The children also drew their favourite part of the story with their comment scribed by the teacher. They loved the story especially when the cat got its 'comeuppance'.

Italian Day was another huge success with the children embracing the opportunity to dress up in Italian theme costumes. There were numerous characters including Mario and Luigi  characters, a Roman soldier, an Italian chef, Italian gentlemen and lovely  little Italian ladies ready to attend the Carnivale.  The children participated in a range of activities such as constructing the Eiffel Tower or another Italian tower with straws, mosaics, paper plate pizzas, making flags and creating wonderful masks. Of course, another highlight was the delicious pizza and gelato.

The week was finished off with Open Night where the theme in the prep area was Personal History. It was wonderful to see parents and grandparents work with the children to draw/record the differences between their school lives and childhood. This night was a fabulous opportunity for the children to share all the work they have been doing exploring their own histories.
 
We are looking forward to next week's Grandparent's Afternoon where the children will again have the opportunity to share their work and sing some simple songs for their 'special person/s'. If grandparents can not attend, you are encouraged to ask another relative, friend or even pop in yourself.
 
Language

The children continue to work towards achieving their learning goals whether that is remembering spaces between their words, forming their letters correctly or striving to add greater detail to their ideas when writing. The reading goals the children are working towards may include consolidating their understanding of sound/letter relationships, developing their fluency and expression and developing their inferential understandings. Depending on individual children, maths goals may include using hands on tools to solve simple addition tasks or applying more complex strategies when adding or subtracting.

This week the children have focused on completing work about their Personal Histories to share with their families at the Open Night or to show their grandparents at next week's Grandparent's Afternoon.  This work included writing about a memory, commenting on their family photos, understanding and then drawing pictures related to the timelines sent in by parents and being interviewed.  A very busy fortnight indeed!

Maths

During our Warm ups we continue to focus on counting forwards and backwards, subitising and learning our doubles and Friends of 10. Over the last fortnight we have been revisiting addition. The children have been using cards and dice to create sums, record them on paper or a whiteboard and use counters, drawing, number facts knowledge or even 'counting on' to solve the sum. Some children are using a 6 sided dice while others may have been using a 8, 10 or even a 20 sided dice. Next week we begin learning about Measurement.

Buddies

This week the children were excited because of their double Buddy sessions - making clocks together and then spending Italian Day together.
Reminders
  • Could we please ask that for birthdays just a small treat for each student be brought in e.g. freddo frog, cup cake, or lolly pop. Thank you.
  • It has been great to see some of our students gain more independence by bringing in their school bag and unpacking it themselves. As we are now in Term 2 it would be great to see more students doing this. You may have a discussion prior to school about what they need to do when they walk in e.g. put bag away, get out drink bottle, put fruit break in their tub and put black pocket in the tub.
  • Just a friendly reminder that fruit/veg break is to be raw food, not pureed or dried. Also we have fruit/veg break twice a day and so we encourage the children to have two pieces of fruit for the day. Thank you.
Important Dates

Tuesday 29th May - Grandparents/Special Person Afternoon 2:30 - 3:30 pm
Friday 1st June - Curriculum Day (PUPIL FREE DAY)
Friday 29th June - End of Term



Our Italian Day Stars



























 

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