Apollo Community Report 

Welcome to Term 3 - we have had such an amazing start! The Apollo Community would like to thank all those parents who attended the Parent Teacher Interviews, it was a pleasure to meet you and celebrate your child’s achievements with you. 

Reading

The focus of the past few weeks has been the reading skill of 'summarising'. Student's are learning to summarise fiction and non-fiction texts using the strategy 'Somebody, Wanted, But, So, Then' or 'Finding the main idea'. As classes, we have studied lots of interesting texts and enjoyed our class novels. We are able to change our library books each week to select books we love to read. 

Apollo students are reminded to change their reader each day and read for 20 minutes a night (if possible). 

Writing

In Writing this Term we have finished off our Procedural texts and are moving onto Explanation Texts. They completed posters on Biomes which are shown. Linking into our Inquiry Topic “How we live affects all living things” students will be writing an explanation text about “How to Grow Seeds”. Students along with their teachers began creating a rubric together to use their Student Voice to instruct their own learning. This rubric will be used as a guide to self assess and peer assess student's writing. We are continuing to work on our SMART Spelling rules this Term to help students identify common sounds in words.

Maths

This term the students in Apollo have been learning about multiplication and division. We are exploring how multiplication and division are related through worded problems. Students often use think boards to show their thinking by showing how to solve math problems in multiple ways. Some strategies they have been working on are equal groups, skip counting and repeated addition, these strategies can be useful in understanding difficult problems later. At home students can be further supported practising timetables.

SEL (Social and Emotional Learning)

Each morning we start the day with a morning 'meeting'. This time allows each class to reflect on the school values, find out what is happening throughout the day and share special achievements. 

Inquiry

This Term we are looking at the topic “How we live affects all living things” which focuses on the human impact that we have on our Earth. Students have been very excited to begin experimenting with biomes and ecosystems. This week students planted an ecosystem inside a bottle and some began to plant seeds in cups. Students will complete a range of activities including Thinking Routines, Research and Collaboration.

Thank you for your continued support.

Apollo Teachers