​The pupils have really enjoyed our class reader The BFG. They produced some lovely wanted posters based on their own gruesome giant designs. We are about to start our narratives based on this classic story. It has been fun making sense of the BFG's idiotic idioms.  It has been really impressive to see lots of year 3 children Go Green on TTRS. This means they can answer any times table question in under 4 seconds. Please check in with your child to see how they are getting on with TTRS and if they have Gone Green yet.
The children have started to explore the world of animation beginning by making a flip book. They transferred their knowledge of ever so slightly differing repeated pictures onto the computers. They used the camera function and gallery to create a digital flip book before getting to grips with a stop motion application. Over the coming weeks they will have created their own stop motion narratives. 
In History we have travelled back 3000 years and over 9000 miles to look at the Shang Dynasty in North Eastern China. The children have been really enthused by this interesting topic; thoroughly enjoying spotting the links between bronze age Britain and Bronze age China. Did you know that people in China were using Bronze 400 years before the people living in Britain? They also developed writing before the people of Britain, ask your child the slightly morbid method of inscription they used.

Year 3 have been very busy indeed. We have completed our narrative retells based on the text The First Drawing. We explored a day in the life of a cave person and even did some cave style artwork to accompany our writing.
In maths we are finishing off our unit on addition and subtraction and will be focusing on multiplication and division. Knowing our times tables will be key to doing well in maths. A little Times
Tables Rockstars throughout the week will make a big difference moving forward. Please let us know if you need your child’s log in details.
We are looking forward to the Chagford Primary Christmas fayre. Each of the classes have created craft items that will be on sale. Be on the lookout for our amazing wood cookie decorations!
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​Year 3 – Oak Class
Year 3 have been working so well and we are very proud of their efforts. Their enthusiasm for learning is so impressive and it is no surprise they earned their all their marbles for their reward session. We had a lovely afternoon of games, Lego, art and a film.
The pupils have really enjoyed their English focus text The First Drawing by Merdicai Bernstein. We have almost completed our retell writing based on the story. The pupils are doing a great job at using fronted adverbials, noun phrases and dialogue.
In maths, we have been focusing on our 2, 5 and 10 times tables. We will soon be moving onto our 3’s, 4’s and 6’s. We have also been developing our column method for addition and subtraction of 3 digit numbers that include exchanging or regrouping.
Our bronze and stone age history topic was a big hit with the class. During the half term, lots of the pupils took on the challenge of building their own version of the shelters used during this time. We even got them to share the models in an assembly. Here are just a few of the models. I’m sure you will agree they look amazing.

whiteroseeducation.com/1-minute-maths
Year 3 have made a great start to the year. We are really impressed with their enthusiasm to learn and their hard work. We have been busy writing a 'How to Guide' leaflet for living on Earth based on the text 'Here We Are' by Oliver Jeffers. This guide will focus on how to look after ourselves, being a good person and how to care for the environment. We have enjoyed reading the text 'The Pied Piper' and learning the old English versions language in the text. Did you know that the term 'pied' refers to someone wearing patches or multiple coloured clothing?

n maths we have been focusing on place value, number bonds up to 100 and the 2-, 5- and 10-times tables. Times Tables Rock Stars is great for learning times tables skills, and we encourage pupils to have regular practice at home. 1 Minute Maths is also a great App for reinforcing key maths skills( 1-minute maths app | White Rose Education).

Please can phonics packs, home reading books and reading journals come to school everyday. We use the texts for reading sessions each day and we will update reading records throughout the week. 
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Thank you to all parents and carers that attended our Meet the Teacher session. 

​Hawthorn Class have made some amazing sea sculptures based on our recent trip to Plymouth Aquarium. We have used recycled materials to create our masterpieces. We have had everything from hammer head sharks, to starfish and even turtles. We had great fun using a range of art techniques to create the sculptures. 
 
We are busily finishing off our Chagford dragon for the Chagford Agricultural show for the 15th August. If you go along please keep an eye out for our amazing effort. 
 
Thank you for all your support this year. We are really proud of the progress the pupils have made and all their hard work. It has been a pleasure to teach them all and we wish them the best as they move up the school. 
 
I hope you all have a safe and happy summer break. We look forward to seeing you next school year. 
 
Mr Green and Mr Frewin 
 

​It has been a busy few weeks in Hawthorn Class. 
 
The pupils have been working hard on their times tables and more children have Gone Green on TTRS. This means they are able to answer times table and division questions on each times table. The year 4 times table check will happen mid June. There is still plenty of time to get some more practice in before then. Please check with your child to see if they have Gone Green on TTRS and what times table they are still working on. 
 
We had a fantastic marble reward treat day. We played on the gymnastic equipment in the hall and played lots of games in class. Thank you for all the tasty snacks and drinks. 
 
In computing we have been using Tinkercad to make online 3D models. We have explored how to use a variety of shapes to build more complicated designs. We designed pencil pots and are putting the finishing touches to our dream houses. George and Paddy are here showing their designs. 
 
Forest school has been lots of fun and the highlight of our recent session was lighting fires using flints and King Alfred cakes. We learned that this interesting fungus only grows on ash trees and when dried out makes a great fire starter.
 
In art lessons we have linked our topic to our science space theme. We used Jackson Pollock splatter painting techniques to create our cosmic backgrounds and based our rockets on the designs of Peter Thorpe. The final pieces look out of this world! 

The pupils are really proud of our latest piece of writing based on the text The Last Garden by Rachel Ip and Anneli Bray. This beautifully illustrated story explores the complex issues of war, refugees, peace, hope and the resilience of the human spirit. The pupils have written their own version of the story focusing on a negative event that people work together to overcome. The pictures show some of our stories. 
 
We are putting the finishing touches to our end of term trip preparations. More details to follow very soon once we have finalised our plans. 
 
Hope everyone has a happy and safe half term and we look forward to welcoming you back soon. 

Since returning from the Easter holidays Hawthorn have continued to make steady progress with their times tables. Progress has certainly been made but we still have a bit more to do before the official check towards mid June. So please allow your child time to sharpen their recall skills on Times Table Rockstars.
In our maths lessons, we are starting to put our newly honed timestable skills to good use and work out areas of rectilinear shapes. The speed in which the class are picking up the concept of area is clearly down to a more in depth understanding of factor pairs and their products. 
We have thoroughly enjoyed reading The White Fox by Jackie Morris this term. It’s a really thought provoking read, dealing with emotionally deep topics such as loss, love and finding where one belongs. 
We have the common theme of migration and the reasons for it running through our writing and geography lessons at present. We are reading the last garden by Rachel Ip and Anneli Bray which tells the story of a young girl fleeing her war torn country and leaving her garden behind. So far the children have used abstract nouns to write some lovely empathetic pieces to the central character Zara. 
We have linked our art topic to our space theme in science and have been exploring the works of Jackson Pollock. We have created space scenes using the drip techniques shown in Pollocks famous works. They will be ready to share by the next newsletter. 
Ms. Rowe, one of our amazing music teachers, has been working hard with the class to develop their recorder skills. The class did a brilliant performance in assembly of Eye of the Tiger. It was really special to see them performing in front of the school and everyone singing along.

We had great fun at the end of last term protecting eggs from a fatal traffic accident. The class were asked to build a vehicle with wheels that would protect an egg from cracking after speeding down a ramp and crashing into a wall. The children came up with various safety features ranging from seat belts, to egg helmets. 

Uniform free day was a huge hit! We had a very comfy time completing our lessons in our pyjamas and onesies. The range of bed wear we had at school was very impressive :) 

​We recently completed a two day story telling workshop by Dartmoor based, professional storytellers and educators Lisa Schneidau and Sara Hurley. It was a project to re-imagine Dartmoor folk tales for the times we live in - called ‘Chasing Crockern. We learned story telling techniques and developed our drama skills to help create our own Dartmoor folk tale. 

Keep an eye out for the home learning updates and curriculum news for summer term that will be sent out to parents this week. This will let you know the upcoming topics in most of our lessons and what the pupils could be doing at home to support their learning. 

We would really like a big push on times tables, especially the year 4's, as they have their statutory multiplication check test in June. We have been really impressed by the progress both the year groups have made towards learning their times tables. Some of the kids are quicker than the teachers! 

​With the white sprinkling of snowdrops in the verges and the sun popping up just in time for breakfast, it’s beginning to feel little bit easier to gee ourselves up and sparkle for the day ahead.
The Thornies have put a monumental effort into their learning at the time of year we should all be wrapped up nice and warm in a ‘cave’ hibernating.
Since the first day of term, we have achieved a great a deal: completing two narratives and working tirelessly to nail those tricky times table facts.

We started the year in English by writing our own version of the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe- focusing on the different characterisation needed to describe an evil sorcerer and a saviour character.
Over the course of the term, we finished reading The BFG- a text we had great fun reading. We especially enjoyed Roald Dahl’s use of portmanteau and disgusting descriptions of giants. We switched focus a few weeks into term and used the text as a writing stimulus. We created wanted posters describing our own made-up giants, created revolting recipes and finished the module by planning and writing our own version of the story.

In maths we have worked through the times table facts up to the 12x. We have been learning tricks for working out those difficult 9s and trying to spot patterns in the products of the 7 times table.
We discovered doubling multiplication facts we know for the 3 and 4 timestable help with the larger multiples of 6 and 8.
We now need to speed up our recall so can we please ask you to allow your child time to practise on timestable rockstars. We are hoping to build in a dedicated session for recall in the week’s busy schedule but any further help at home will be a great.

In our History lessons we have studied the Anglo-Saxons. So far, we have learned that very little was written about their life and that the facts we have are pieced together through artefacts and slightly biased texts written by Gildas the Wise and the Venerable Bede- the Wikipedia of their time.
Using our historian skills, we have cobbled together enough information to learn where the Anglo Saxons came from and why they arrived on the British Isles. We learned how they enjoyed a rural life and that a recorded staple of their diet is Pottage. We made some at the back of the class on an electric stove, it was delicious?? Some children liked it a so much they took a portion home in their water bottle! We will continue learning about their rituals and the Heptarchy after the break.

Another module we will continue after half term will be our science topic on light. We have learned how light can be bent (refraction) and how it bounces off (reflection) certain types of objects. After the break we will continue investigating the spectrum and the use of shadow culminating in a shadow puppet theatre. If your child has a torch they could bring in for the first few weeks of the next half term that would be great.