Blog 11th March

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