It's Black History Month and Hawthorn Class have very quickly learnt a lot about important historical events. We began by looking at a biography of Rosa Parks and the children then decided which role models they'd like to research when writing their own biographies. We looked at other civil rights movements such as the Little Rock Crisis, and the children discussed how they would feel if they were attending school during segregation. 
 
Importantly, we have also looked at lots of positive aspects of Black History, and particularly enjoyed learning about the roots of RnB music! We realised that there were so many famous songs and riffs that we recognised, even if we didn't initially recognise the name of the artist playing them. More to follow next week!

This week in Hawthorn, we attempted an experiment which involved standing flowers in vases of water and food colouring. The objective was for the flowers to 'drink up' the food colouring and so then the petals would be dyed different colours...
 
...but this experiment was unsuccessful!! Never mind, we can learn from this. The children re-designed the experiment and, after some careful reasoning, decided to try again next week with a wider range of flowers, including using some with roots still attached rather than just cut flowers. We would really appreciate your help with this. 
 
Next Tuesday (13th October) if possible, could your child please bring in a flower/plant of any kind. It'd be great if your child could bring in something with roots still attached, but any plant or flower would do. We are going to stand these in water and a few drops of food colouring, and compare the differences between the different flowers. We will note if having roots has any effect or not.
 
Disclaimer: Please do not dig up the parks and meadows of Chagford in aid of this experiment!
 
Thanks for your help and happy Weekend,
 
Mrs R

​Hawthorn class have kept up the fantastic attitude this week, pouring a lot of energy into their learning. They have mostly been busy...

• drafting persuasive letters from the point of view of an endangered animal
• discussing different historical sources and what they tell us about Celtic Queen Boudica... which sources can we really trust and why?
• rounding numbers to the nearest 10, 100 and 1000 in Maths - Year 4s are picking it up quickly and Year 5s have done a great job of consolidating last year's work 🙂
• continuing with our Roman battle dance sequence in P.E - some impressive friezes and the whole class worked carefully to move in perfect unison when needed
• practising French numbers and months which will help us translate dates, including our birthdays!

Lots of children have already completed their homework researching the Roman names for different towns/cities/countries. Remember to bring this in on Monday and any particularly artistic pieces will be displayed on the classroom wall! 
 
Have a wonderful weekend everyone!