In Hawthorn we work hard to accomplish our goals. With our sights on the end goal, it can be easy to spend most of our time working towards success and neglect the fun side of life. We complete a project and move onto the next one, sometimes not even stopping to take stock of our fantastic achievements. After so much challenging work, we deserve a little party every once in a while. Filling our class marble jar is an immense success for us. It shows that Mr Frewin and Mr Evemy have been impressed by the conduct and general learning attitude of the class many times over the course of the term. Besides, life is more fun with a bit of celebration and this week that is exactly what we did. The whole week has been a bit out of the ordinary. We started it with a visit from Carole, or as she is more affectionately known- the singing lady. We all wowed her (except for Mr. Frewin) with our beautiful singing voices and musical timing. It really is lovely having Carole come in to sing with us, it reminds us just how joyous and morale boosting collective singing is. After seeing how soul nourishing harmonising is, Mr Frewin has made a permanent slot on the timetable for regular singing practice. So, if you happen to walk past the school at 9:20 and you are wondering where those dulcet tones are emanating from, look no further than Hawthorn class! We were incredibly lucky on Tuesday to have a visit from the Finchmeiseter general whilst Mr. Frewin was out with the hockey team. Mr. Finch had a lovely time teaching in Hawthorn, where he continued reading our guiding-reading text: The Suitcase by Chris Naylor Ballesteros. Mr Frewin chose this book because of the catastrophic events happening in the world today. It's a text that tells the story of an immigrant/refugee who appears very strange to the natives of the land he arrives in. They learn an important lesson after initially treating their visitor with suspicion. Using narratives to introduce these important and relevant topics is a powerful yet gentle way to discuss sensitive issues. If you do not know the text and would like to use it as a stimulus to discuss these issues, I highly recommend it. Your child may have lots of questions about what is going on in the world now and it is especially important we have these discussions instead of shying away from them from a position of protection. Another text we have looked at is Saving the Butterfly by Helen Cooper. This is another story about refugees which focuses on the difficulties they may have adjusting to a new country. In English we have continued to look at our non-fiction text: Science in Flash: Earth and Space. We looked closely at the use of subheadings and the subtle clues they give us about the paragraph they precede. We realised that writers use questions and ambiguous language to spark an interest in the reader. Following on from here, we looked at the layout of the pages in the book and used it as inspiration to plan the layout of the pages we will eventually be writing. We have also looked at the specific technical language used in the text and checked its meaning by using dictionaries. We achieved all this by Tuesday!
In maths we have come to the end of our module on fractions where we have gained a solid understanding of them and their relationship to timestables. We are still enjoying learning our timestables with some members of the class choosing to practice during our class party! Moving forward, we will be using our understanding of fractions to fully grasp decimals and make the connections between the two. On Thursday morning, we were treated to a surprise visit from Sophie, South West Water’s Education Officer. Along with Oak class, we found out about the amazing journey water takes to reach the taps in our homes, how water is treated, and what happens to our bodily waste, both poo and wee! We spent time mapping out the water cycle before discussing the importance of keeping our reservoirs and rivers healthy to ensure our wildlife is protected and our water is the highest quality possible. We enjoyed listening to Sophie’s list of objects found in the region’s sewers – these included enormous fatbergs the size of double decker buses, teddy bears, mobile phones and even false teeth! Sophie also described how water is filtered through different treatment processes before being pumped to our taps. We watched a practical demonstration of a muddy liquid being transformed into beautifully clear water using a jug, filter funnel and different types of paper, gravel and stones. As part of our promise to try to conserve water and protect the environment, we wrote our own pledges to save water, such as taking shorter showers (or none at all!), or not running the tap whilst cleaning our teeth. All in all, a thoroughly enjoyable and inspirational morning. Thank you, Sophie! And then there was the class party. It was so much fun to let our hair down and celebrate our achievements. We’re not sure Mr. Frewin intended the celebratory display of writing on a washing line was for jumping up at, but when Encanto songs are on, anything goes! There was much dancing and (junk) food eaten. Mr Frewin couldn’t believe the entire mountain was devoured, but it was! There was also an appearance from a robot teacher that was commanded to do some very silly things indeed! I hope you all have a lovely weekend. Remember it is parent’s evening next week so get booked in. Mr Frewin will be available to talk to on Tuesday and you will have a chance to meet Mr. Evemy on Thursday. Just remember life is short so make sure you always pack your party pants!
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This has been the week of the 4 Rs - 5 for some of us.
Read, remember, recall, reflect and for some run! Recently, we’ve had lots of discussions about the brains plasticity and how we have the ability to reshape our brains by making new and stronger connections. Creating this malleable image of the brain is empowering us to take ownership of our learning. Realising that the effort we put in can make our brain grow and develop. We have been encouraged to work independently at our own pace with resources we feel we need. These range from the use of the computers to research and use for reference to physically manipulating maths resources to help embed understanding via tactile learning. Thinking about thinking and learning, and our early understanding of it, has helped us persevere when things have got difficult - realising we are building new connections. We will continue to embed metacognition for the rest of the year. In English we have been forging those new brain pathways by reading new information about Earth and space. We started the week by identifying the common features of an information text. Following on from this we were tasked with reading, remembering and recalling a whole page from the text. We looked at different and useful ways to help remember and recall all the information. To help embed these neural pathways do keep those highways fresh, we used flash cards, single word notes, and pictorial representations to hep us. We all did an excellent job and in pairs were able to recall a whole page about our solar system. My very educated mother….. was very helpful indeed. Ask your child how she helped! In maths we continue to run up and down our times table neural motorways with lots of recalling of those all important multiplication facts. We have made connections between these facts and our fractions - using them to find equivalents, simplify add and subtract. We have all had great success with adding and subtracting fractions- it really is quite easy once you know how to make the denominators the same. One sticking point has been converting our fractions into wholes. A little brain teaser for you and your child: What’s the equivalent of 6 thirds? Now you know this how else could you write 8 thirds? It was also international women’s day on Tuesday. Mr Frewin shared a new book, Little Leaders: Bold Women in Black History. We looked at three very important black in history and discussed how their strength and bravery inspired gender, generation and an entire race. We will continue to dip into this book over the next few weeks during our guided reading sessions. And then some went running. Mr Frewin took 20 Hawthorneys to cross country on Wednesday afternoon and our boys and girls teams did exceptionally well. A massive well done to everyone who participated. The course was tough - two big hills and a set of steps needed to be negotiated twice over two laps. Mr Frewin was very impressed by how deep everyone dug in to get to the finish line. A special mention needs to go to Max and Bruno who finished 1st and 2nd in their race, which has put us in a very strong position for overall victory over the three race series. World Book Day A wonderful array of characters appeared in our World Book Day parade on Thursday morning, transforming the children into sorcerers, Gauls(!), princesses and other fantastical creatures. It was obvious that a lot of thought and effort had gone into costume design, accessories and face painting. A huge ‘well done’ to all those involved. We spent the morning constructing mini books to house our own twisted fairy tales or a story close to our heart. Much deliberation went into planning the character descriptions and setting, before mapping the story carefully to include a sprinkling of those special ingredients (such as ambitious vocabulary and figurative language) that would really enhance the narrative. At the end of the session, everyone was keenly sharing their stories, and some were even thinking about setting up a mini book publishing house so they could serialise their work. After lunch, we listened to the final part of one of our class books, Zombierella. We were really keen to find out what happened to the truly vile (but exceedingly pretty) FAKE sisters and were pleased when they suffered a gruesome, but quite fitting, punishment for their sins. I won’t tell you the end, just in case you want to read this ghostly (or is it ghastly?) tale for yourselves. Before venturing down to the hall for our chance to hear about all the latest offerings from The Bookery in Crediton, we explored one of the amazing songs by the grandmaster of English, MC Grammar. Hidden in his special World Book Day rap were almost 30 different well-known book titles; our job was to uncover these as we listened and then put them in the correct order – no mean feat! Our final session in the hall with the lovely folk from The Bookery was very inspiring and resulted in the purchase of many inspirational, invigorating and imaginative books, both fact and fiction. Children were delighted with their acquisitions, and some were even walking zombie-like around the hall, possibly engrossed in a tale about slightly overweight flying horses or learning a surprising new fact about fish! A delightful end to a tiring, but entertaining and fruitful, day. Enjoy your weekends Mr Frewin and Mr Evemy "When spring came, even the false spring, there were no problems except where to be happiest." Ernest Hemmingway. It’s a new half term and a new season is upon us- even though the daffodils are out it doesn’t feel very spring like. More like the monsoon season with all this moor mizzle around. Despite the damp, we had a fun start to the week: anonymously writing about our favourite part of half term and then guessing whose half term we were hearing about. It sounded like everyone had at least one exciting adventure ranging from football matches and French dancing to falling grandparents! For the next three weeks we will be combining our learning in science and english. Our science lens is now focusing on earth and space for this half term and we will be referencing the fantastic book: Science in a Flash: Earth and Space by Georgia Amson-Smith. We will not only be using it to find facts about our galaxy and space travel, but also to use as a blueprint text to design and write our own non fiction page about the lunar eclipse and the moon cycle. In maths we are using our times table knowledge to great effect- recognising, simplifying and finding equivalent fractions. Due to our ever-present, playful revision of times tables facts during the day, we have noticed a better than normal understanding and grasp of the very tricky concept of fractions. At least all of our maths lessons will be online via google classrooms so if you ever want to get a head start or revise what we have learned in class with you child please take a look. We will endeavour to get all our english work up as well these will be more research activities that you and your child can do together at home. Don’t forget that your child has a log in for Times Tables Rockstars - let's make Hawthorn Class come at the top of Mr Finch's League Tables each Friday. Mr Frewin has started to roll out the new Real PE curriculum this week and after one very enjoyable (and sweaty) footwork session we are all really impressed by how inclusive and fun the lessons are. During our Saints PE session on Monday, Miss Edwards really put the kids through their paces with a gruelling circuit training session. The children were asked to record their heart rate and monitor the immediate effects exercise has on the body. Another reminder: It is World Book Day next Thursday - children do not have to dress up for the day but they may if they choose to. We will be having a special day filled with bookish joy. We will be welcoming a pop up bookshop from our friends at The Bookery in Crediton who will introduce children to some fun age appropriate books and give them a chance to buy a book from the shop. The bookshop will remain open until four o'clock at the end of the day in case any parents or carers would like to visit it. To buy a book children need to bring cash in a sealed, named envelope and give it to the class teacher at the start of the day. Children will be able to buy one book for six pounds or two books for ten pounds.
Well at least the sun came back for the final day of the week May it stay with us for the weekend so we can welcome spring in the right way. Enjoy your weekends. Mr Frewin and Mr Evemy We are both feeling very proud of the Hawthorns this week, they have had to cope with a lot of change recently and rise to the many challenges this change brings. Not only have we recently welcomed Mr Evemy to the class we have also recently completed two tricky maths topics: multiplication and shape and measurements. These changes have brought with them some stresses and anxieties centred around new expectations, concepts and ways of thinking. Over the last two weeks, we discussed the big feelings we experience in a range of circumstances and how best to manage them in a safe and healthy way. We have all created feelings thermometers. We use them to track our feelings at any point of the day. Each feeling has a clear path of expected behaviours linked to it. Once we follow these behaviours we should arrive in a happy, safe and content place. To help with this, we devised a Hawthorn calming cures menu which contains mindful practises to help bring us back to our selves and feel grounded in the moment. Next week we plan to introduce journaling practices to the class to help us process feelings, set positive intentions and celebrate past successes. Celebrating successes has been easy this week, the children have made fantastic efforts with there stories based on the book Leon and the Place between. We have been blown away by their descriptive phrases and the magical dimensions they have created. Next week we will write them up in neat and collage our accompanying illustrations. As previously mentioned we have finished a couple of maths topics and everyone has exceeded expectations in their end of unit assessments. They really do know their perimeters from their areas! Although we have shifted our focus away from multiplication we still need to keep up with our timestables practice so please keep up with the timestable rockstars practice at home- I will be setting some challenges over the weekend! Mr Evemy wirites... When you were young, you may have been captivated by fairy tales such as Little Red Riding Hood and The Three Billy Goats Gruff, but would you dare read the gruesome story of… Zombierella! In guided reading, we have been studying the prologue from Joseph Coelho’s Zombierella, a ‘fairy tale gone bad’. The story starts in the forbidden books section, in a murky corner at the very back of the library. Here we meet the librarian, a particularly unsavoury character who revels in unearthing books that have gone off – foul old tomes that are kept in chains for safety’s sake. As he scans the titles of these fractured fairy tales, he discovers subverted stories such as The Monstrous Duckling, Creeping Beauty and, of course, Zombierella. We have been creating our own titles for rather off-colour fairy tales: these have included Jack and the Bonestalk, Little Dead Riding Hood, and the rather whiffy Cindersmella! Whilst concocting these foul titles, there has been much merriment in being able to play around with language and create unusual (generally humorous or gory) words. Next week, we will be designing book covers for our tales, which will include our own creative illustrations and blurbs. We look forward to sharing these with you in due course – just remember that they may contain some nasty surprises! Enjoy your weekends everyone
Mr Frewin and Mr Evemy Poor Mr Evemy was ill this week giving the children a challenging end to the week. Nevertheless they rode the storm and put up with Mr Finch on Thursday followed by Ms Barton, Mr Dray and Mr Finch again on Friday. Well done Hawthorns for staying positive and making sure you keep a smile on whatever you are doing. In Maths we have been working on multiplying two digit numbers by a one digit number. I was very happy to hear a pupil speaking very confidently about 'partitioning' - she knew how to turn twenty-four into twenty and four, how to multiply each part of that (using her table facts to help) and then how to 'put it back together'. Children looked at multiple methods for solving the same problem and some showed real mental dexterity. I love the way Hawthorn never look at Maths as a drudge - they always find interest in it. In English we have been looking at the mysterious and slightly awesome 'Leon and the Place Between' by Angela McAllister and Graham Baker-Smith. We've been trying to get into the heads of the characters and writing our own sentences and paragraphs based on the images and text in the book. If you haven't read 'Leon and the Place Between' I really advise getting a copy. It's a great book which repays a great deal of investigation. In RE this week we were learning about the festival of Divali and the story of Rama and Sita. WE also spent a lesson with Mr Finch thinking up smart targets to help the school demonstrate it's commitment to our three values of Community, Challenge and Care. Great work Hawthorns.
One thing nearly all the children in the class could seriously do with brushing up on is their times tables facts. If you have lost your log in details for Times Tables Rock Stars please do let us know so we can get that sorted for you. Later this year the children will take part in the national Times Tables check for Year Four. It would be lovely to see Hawthorn Class post a really good marker for that. It's not that we're competitive as such - we'd just like to beat our friends/rivals across the trust! On Times Tables Rockstars, the 'Soundcheck' game is a pretty exact copy of the format of the check so getting good on soundcheck will help lock in a great score when it comes to the government's check. Have a wonderful weekend Hawthorns. You make us proud every day. Blog 15/12/2021
Grrr Christmas jumpers, Grrr tinsel, Grrrrrr Christmas carols and Grrrr Christmas cards!! That’s right, it’s the final week of the autumn term and Hawthorn have thoroughly enjoyed ridding Mr Frewin of his Grinchiness! They’ve serenaded him with carols and etched garish depictions of snowflakes and Santas onto the back of his retinas with vivid Christmas knit wear. Of course, I jest. Christmas in school is a magical time of year, we can all reflect on a successful term and allow ourselves to float along with Chagford school Christmas traditions. I gave them the choice of a final PE session or Christmas hat making and of course, to my horror they chose hat making. Some of the creations were truly spectacular. I’m really sorry I haven’t got a picture of them all wearing their hats, but after the class had been turned into what looked like the battlefield of a confetti fight, we had to spend the last 10 minutes of the session manically tidying or risk our Christmas dinners being served to empty seats. We did decide on some prizes: Kit created the most original. His was a giant mug of hot chocolate to keep you warm on a cold (not this year!??) Christmas eve. Ruby won the prize for most colourful. She used both pen and tissue paper to really bring her creation to life. The most Christmassy award went to Ollie for his giant Santa head. Finally, the best made went to Lily for her fully covered Santa hat made completely from paper. Once the bin was as full as saint Nick’s sack, we paraded down to the hall for our Christmas feast. The food was delightful- Mikey ate at least 8 sausages and more than one member of the class managed to wangle a second helping of dessert! But it hasn’t all been Christmas this week. In English we had a brief recap on using conjunctions correctly as this was an area we felt the class needed a bit more guidance on. The misconceptions mainly centred on the very subtle differences in meaning between those tricky subordinating conjunctions. I challenge you to define and compare while and as. Mr Frewin finally got the display up of the classes work (Yay!) do please come and have a look. If your child’s work did not make it onto the board, please do ask to see their work since everyone worked really hard in completing it and it would be a shame for it to stay in my folder until it goes home at the end of the year. In maths we have continued to wrestle with multiplication and division. This week’s focus has been the fantastic 9 times table (so many tricks to learn) Try challenging your child to tell you if any number is in the 9 times table. And I mean any, go as big as you want. The next post I write will be from the New Year where will be embarking on another exciting journey of discovery and learning. In maths we will continue with our times table practice so any help you want to give your little angel over the holiday will be greatly appreciated. In science we will be moving away from rocks (to be revisited later on in the year) and into the light- we will be learning about light. We will be starting a new book in English called Leon and the place between. This is a text I am very fond of and cannot wait to hear everyone’s insights and understandings. In History we will be studying the Anglo Saxons and Scots. Of course, if you have any knowledge expertise, facts, literature, Google or anything else that you would like to share with your child please feel free to do so. It would be great if I could learn something new from each person to start the new year. Thank you for all your support and enthusiasm this term. I honestly cannot wait to get this Christmas over with and back to the classroom with your wonderful sparky little darlings. Bah Humbug It’s been bitter sweet for Hawthorn class this week. They have had to really focus their efforts in a number of ways: from maths and reading assessments to singing practices and reading recitals. But the hard work has really paid off, with everyone finishing the week feeling rightfully proud of their achievements.
The carol service on Thursday has surely been the number one highlight. Even if it was a bit damp! The whole class conducted themselves beautifully and their angelic little voices are still soothingly flowing between my ears as I start my weekend. We are always blown away by every child’s Confidence, Courage and Composure when they are asked to stand up in front of an audience and perform. Well done Hawthorn and thank you to everyone that attended. The aforementioned three Cs were also on display during our English sessions. The children put the finishing touches to their journey stories. After some tweaks and fixes, everyone ensured their story included all of the features we have been focusing on this term: propositional phrases, a mixture of simple, compound and complex sentences for effect and elaborate descriptive noun phrases. These were used to help describe different settings as the reader was taken on a vivid imaginative journey. We got the pens out for these to be written up neatly and everyone produced beautifully penned pieces of writing. Once completed, every child brought their writing to life by reading their stories aloud in front of the class and camera. We focused on change of pitch, clear intonation and appropriate pauses to help encapsulate their audience. Even though the children have done two maths assessments this week, we have still maintained our focus on times tables. This week we concentrated on our 6s. Timestables are always good for parents to help out with as repetition of the facts is the best way to speed up recall. So please engage with TT Rockstars and any other times tables games you remember playing in your formative years. Overall a very successful week for all Enjoy your weekends and we go again for the final week of term. We’ve had to have a break from morning dances this week because our moves have been too uplifting for some of our neighbours- I can honestly say we’ve missed it! So much so that we’ve had to engage ourselves with some energetic games of tag! With the start of advent this week, our mornings have taken on a more Christmassy feel with the singing of carols being expertly led by Mrs Armstrong. It has been lovely having a big sing song each day.
In class this week we have continued to use Marc Martin’s A River as a blueprint text to write our versions of the story. We drew our own scenes to travel through but instead of travelling on a boat we chose to soar above the settings in our magical imaginary aeroplane. Everyone did a really great job of writing a shared class version after some very careful collective planning. At the end of of the week, they individually planned their own versions of a journey story. These should be finished early next week. Once completed we will get some videos of them being read allowed. We can’t wait to hear their finished versions! Everyone has been working really hard in maths this week to get their heads around multiplying and divided by 10s and 100s. Well done to everyone that challenged themselves to complete an investigation, we have been really impressed by everyone’s organisation of their work. In science we started everyone’s favourite topic: ROCKS! This week we focused on igneous rocks and the two different types: extrusive and intrusive. Ask your child to see if they can explain the difference. I hope everyone enjoys their weekends. Ciao ⚠️ PUBLIC HEALTH WARNING ⚠️
Chagford primary school has piles-- Of leaves that is! Autumn is well and truly here, I have been wishing and urging it to arrive for the past few weeks- cursing every time the temperature has been above 15 degrees and walking around castle drogo every weekend, hoping to see a patchwork quilt of autumnal hues down the valley. With russet crisps, spiked balls and auburn jewels littering the playground floor, playtime games have involved lots of collecting, hiding, and my personal favourite: swirly spiralling showers of orange. This year, if you haven’t already, I highly recommend kicking a big pile of leaves as high as you can- I promise, you feel like autumn itself, but instead of leaves it’s your aged years that drop off with every kick. We have switched our focus in English this week to a beautifully illustrated picture book: A River by Marc Martin. It is a simple book that tells the story of an imaginary trip along a river. Throughout the excursion, we are immersed in a number of settings as we travel from the acrid city, through patchwork farmlands and dense vibrant jungle before we end at the expansive ocean. Check the book out on Google classroom. We looked at how Marc Martin used prepositions and strong verbs to take us on this journey, before replicating it in our own writing. A River is also a really fantastic example of different sentence constructions. The class have done some excellent work this week identifying conjunctions to determine which type of sentence structure Martin has used. It is brain scrambling grammar at times, and we have been so impressed with the perseverance and determination of everybody to get their heads around FANBOYS and ISAWABUB! (Ask your kid for a an explanation). Next week we look forward to seeing the class use and apply these different structures, and be able to articulate which sentences they are using. During maths, we have been continuing our module on measurement. This week we have been looking at perimeter. The main focus has been working out efficient strategies and tricks to calculate the perimeters of rectilinear shapes. Everyone has got on really well with it and we have been impressed by the understanding everyone has shown. We are very proud of the title- easiest class to clean- given to us by the hardworking Shirley (cleaner, chef and staff confidant). I’m afraid we lost that title this week when in science, we investigated the properties of non Newtonian fluids! If you were wondering what those white powdery stains were on your child’s clothes, it was cornflour, which we used to make Oobleck. The kids had a great time slapping a liquid to see it behave like a solid. They did manage to write these observations down which will eventually get marked once I’ve picked the oobleck from the page! Woah busy week- enjoy your weekends- go jump in a pile of leaves! |
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