FJH Term 2 Learning Wrap Up

It has been a HUGE term in Foundation and the students have worked exceptionally hard. They have learned so much since the beginning of the year and absolutely love being at school! Congratulations Foundation students on a wonderful first semester at school!

On Tuesday 29th of July, our Foundation students will be celebrating 100 Days at school. We would love for you to attend our brief whole school celebration assembly from 9-9:15am. All are welcome!

This is a part of our Foundation Learning Assembly and will be followed by some activities with the Foundation students, which the Foundation families are invited to attend and participate in!

Mathematics:

This term in Maths we have been learning about part-whole relationships, shape and continued with our focus on counting and place value. We have been looking at how numbers can be broken into parts, in many different ways and using hands-on activities to explore basic addition, developing our understanding of how different number combinations can make up the parts of a number. We even played some special games in class sport to help us to develop our understanding of part-whole relationships. 

In our unit on shapes, we have named, sorted and identified everyday 2D shapes like circles, squares, triangles and rectangles. We went on shape scavenger hunts around the school to help us to clarify our understanding of and determine the features of these shapes. One of our favourite activities was creating our super scary shape monsters! 

We have also been exploring numbers up to 20, learning how to recognise, write and represent them with lots of games and hands-on activities. We have learnt about the Friends of 10 by singing our favourite song lots and lots!

Phonics:

In Phonics, we have been working extremely hard and have mastered ALL of the initial sounds for each letter of the alphabet! As a part of the Little Learners Love Literacy (LLLL) program, we were introduced to Milo Monkey who was planning his birthday party. Every couple of days, we would meet a new character that Milo Monkey was inviting to his birthday party, in the Milo’s Birthday Surprise Book, which on every page, introduced us to a new letter and sound. In Week 7, we had been introduced to all of the characters, but Milo Monkey was sad because all of his friends were busy. Little did he know that all of his friends were planning a birthday surprise for him. To celebrate the success and learning that the Foundation students had achieved, we decided to plan a surprise birthday party for Milo and the students. 

Thursday morning was a normal day, except Milo was missing. After recess, we decided to go searching for him - but first, we needed to read the book again for clues. On the second last page of the book was a special note with clues that sent us on a Scavenger Hunt around the school to find all of Milo’s friends. Every clue linked to a different sound, so our fantastic Foundation detectives used their knowledge and learnings to find all 25 characters as a team. Finally, we were back at the classroom and inside was the birthday surprise! The students were SO excited! To celebrate Milo’s Birthday, we played Pass the Parcel, Pin the Tail on Zoe Zebra, decorated Milo muffins, had some party food and had a dance party! To quote many of the kids, it was the “Best Day Ever!” Congratulations Foundation on learning all of the letters!!

English:

Throughout the term, we have been busy using our knowledge of letter sound relationships to read, spell and write lots! We have been reading lots of books including, ‘We Are In A Book,’ ‘That Is Not A Good Idea,’ ‘The Great Paper Caper’ and ‘Lost and Found.’ We have been making text to self connections, making predictions by using text clues, comparing and contrasting ideas and exploring fiction and non-fiction text features. 

In writing, we have been writing lots of informative texts, especially procedures. We have been learning about the structure of sentences and what is needed to make a full sentence, including capital letters and full stops. We have been reading lots of informative books about helpers in our community, road safety and animals. We have used our knowledge to write lots of fantastic facts.

Chemical Science:

In Science, we have been learning about different materials and the properties that different materials have, such as being soft, hard, or waterproof. We have sorted lots of everyday materials and objects into categories based on their properties, by touching, testing and talking about them, and have explored how these properties determine what something is used for. We have discovered that materials can change by bending, stretching, or folding, and applied this knowledge when creating our twisty dragonflies and making paper planes. We have investigated how materials can be combined or changed in reversible or irreversible ways, and explored the difference between solids, liquids and gases. 

In Week 8 of Term, we had a Science Day with the Year 1 and 2 students where we learned about all things chemical science. We discovered the physical difference between solids, liquids and gases, investigated the impact of freezing on different liquids, explored how the properties of materials change when heated or cooled when making jelly, explored how different liquids react with gummy bears, blew up a balloon with a bottle and even made lemon volcanoes! Last week, we took on the Big Bad Blow Dryer challenge! We used paddle pop sticks, straws and lego blocks to make the three houses built in the story of the Three Little Pigs. We made predictions and designed houses that we thought could survive the Big Bad Blow Dryer! It was lots of fun! 

Kihayl - For the fantastic effort you put into your writing and for creating a very detailed and well structured information report on elephants.

Rian - For always giving your best in every learning task and showing incredible effort in your writing.

Joshua - For always showing kindness, care and compassion to others, and for being a thoughtful friend to everyone in the classroom.

Isabelle - For bringing a positive attitude to every learning opportunity and for creating a fantastic information report on elephants. Isabelle included subheadings and well structured paragraphs.

Archie - For putting in fantastic effort to improve your handwriting and for working hard to build your letter and sound knowledge when reading and writing.

Kensie - For her strong work ethic, the pride and humility she brings to all her endeavours, and her caring, collaborative spirit that enriches our learning community.

Sofia - For her genuine love of learning, her curiosity and enthusiasm in every task, and her thoughtful, positive contributions as a valued and collaborative team member.