Great Learning Happening in Kindergarten!

Each fortnight we like to put a spotlight on the great learning happening in a particular grade in our school. In this report the spotlight is on Kindergarten.

During English lessons Kinder have been working hard on using their knowledge of single letter sounds and learnt digraphs to decode words in their readers. The teachers have been so impressed to see how far they have all come with their ability read more accurately and attempting to read more fluently. Each day the teachers read out a decodable sentence from the class focus book and the class hear and record the words they hear using their knowledge of learnt sounds, diagraphs and spelling rules. Over the past fortnight, Kinder have been introduced to the ‘sh’, ‘th’, ‘ch’ and ‘ng’ digraphs and the teachers were amazed at how quickly the students were able to identify and record words they knew contained these digraphs. Such clever cookies!

In writing, Kinder have been learning to write sentences that inform. This type of writing has linked in beautifully with their focus on 'Living Things' in Science and Technology. After visiting Billabong Zoo, the Kinder students were keen to learn more about different mammals such as dingoes, koalas, wombats and echidnas. The students love watching informative videos on YouTube, reading informative books from the library and information packs provided to us from Billabong Zoo. Check out some of these photos from our fun zoo excursion!

Over the past few weeks we have focused on learning more about tiger sharks and mimic octopuses. Once the class has brainstormed the facts they would like to include in their informative sentences, the teacher models a sentence chosen by the students. The teacher refers to the co-constructed writing success criteria to ensure the sentence starts with a capital letter, has spaces between the words, makes grammatical sense and finishes with a full stop. Students refer to this success criteria when they are writing their independent sentences too. 

In Maths, Kinder have been learning to use effective counting strategies so they can count accurately. Students have been working in pairs and have been given a large collection of counters and asked to estimate how many they think they have. They then needed to arrange their collection in a way that was easy for others to walk past and know what their total was. The classes have also been learning about fractions. Students have worked in pairs to demonstrate that they can cut objects into equal halves and quarters. There has been lots of great discussions about why the students need to know about fractions, and where they can use their knowledge in their everyday lives.

As mentioned above, Kinder have been learning about ‘Living Things’ in Science and Technology and have shown a keen interest in how to help animals when they are unwell. We are lucky enough to have a wonderful parent in our school community who owns and runs the Windansea Vet here in Forster. Dr Amanda Wood invited us into her veterinary clinic where she taught us how to keep our pets healthy and reminded us to keep our teeth clean as well as our pets. She also showed us what a tick looks like and how to spot them on ourselves or our pets and how to avoid getting bitten by them altogether. We all had the opportunity to listen to the heartbeat of a dog, look through a microscope to see a blood sample and examine different animal x-rays. We learnt so much and we now have lots of budding vets amongst our Kindergarten friends. Check out some of the photos from our vet visit

Well done Kinder students, keep up the awesome work!

Mrs Suzie Monks

Primary Coordinator