Icarus Community Report

Welcome to the Icarus Community

Welcome back to Term 3! We hope everyone had a wonderful and relaxing holiday break. We also welcome new families who have commenced at Aitken Hill Primary School this term. It has been a busy start to Term 3, with students being very excited about the learning. The Icarus Community teachers look forward to sharing with you what the students have been up to!

Reading

This term we continued and have recently finished reading the wonderful story of "The One and Only Ivan". Our students had the pleasure of making text-to-self, text-to-text and text-to-world connections, as they enjoyed listing to the story of Ivan, the painting gorilla. We concluded the book by watching a movie inspired by this extraordinary story.

Writing

The Icarus students were introduced to the art of poetry and wrote different types of poems such as acrostic, cinquain, shape and diamante poems. We also revisited procedural writing, which included practising to write recipes, series of instructions and how-to-guides. 

Maths

In Numeracy, students have been learning to solve multiplication problems by using different strategies. They used arrays, repeated addition, number line, groups and skip counting to solve multiplication worded problems. Students were engaged in writing their own number stories involving multiplication. They enjoyed sharing their strategies and thinking with their peers. 

SEL

In Social and Emotional Learning, students have been learning about stress. They explored causes of stress and identified a range of strategies that can be used to help deal with strong emotions. Students played ‘slow motion mirror game’ to practise self-control and self-calming. They shared real-life scenarios when they were stressed and what strategies helped them to manage stress. 

Inquiry

This term, Icarus community students started exploring the facts about the Sun, the Earth and the Moon. Students were familiarised with the concepts of Sun being a star, what constitutes our Solar system, how Moon and Earth orbits within space, and many more exciting topics. They were engaged in fruitful discussion, challenging old concepts and discovering new knowledge.

Friendly Reminders

• Please ensure your child has a water bottle at school each day and that it is labelled with their name.
• Please ensure your child is attending school regularly and on time as ‘It is not okay to be away’.
• Please ensure that your child is reading their home reader for 20 minutes every night and that their reading log is filled in and signed by a parent/guardian. Students are welcome to either read a book from school or a book of their own choice from home.
• We strongly encourage students bring along some brain food (fruit and vegetables) that they may eat in class. It is important that this is included as an additional snack in their lunchbox.

Warm regards,

Icarus Teachers

Christina, Amanda, Amandeep and Aliya.