WOW! How have we arrived at half term already? 
Its been a rather unsettled end of term but Hawthorn have not let that get in the way of their learning!
The class enjoyed a rare visit from Mr. Finch this week who kindly took an English session on Wednesday, the children enjoyed sharing there love of 'How to train a dragon'. We also enjoyed writing our fond memories of Miss Rowe in a celebration Poem as a present for her leavers assembly. Enjoy your new adventure Miss Rowe! We will miss you lots.

In Art this term, firstly we enjoyed creating mosaic picture of a landscape of the children's choice. With the classes passion for Dragons we created dragon eyes using pastels!
The children, as a class voted for their favourite 5 pictures of each piece of work. They were all amazing, I'm glad it wasn't my decision!

After spending the term exploring google slides. Hawthorn class were set the challenge to create a slide show on their new learning form our history lesson on the Romans. These are still in creation stage so hopefully we'll be able to share them with you soon.
In Maths, we have been looking at adding 4 digit numbers to 4 digit number first with no exchange then set the challenge of exchanging. The class worked hard and persevered with the challenge. Can they show you how to work out 3425+4767=?
In PE, we have been working hard to learn the skills needed to participate in a netball tournament. It was really good to see there hardwork pay off with an end of term tournament. Well done to the blue team who won all 3 of their games. The whole class played well and demonstrate great sportsmanship. Well done Hawthorn!

That concludes our learning for this half term.
We wish you all a well deserved restful half term. 
See you all on 1st November.

The end of another week and a step closer to half term. 
We are so proud of each and everyone of Hawthorn class and the hard they show in all of their work.
This week, we have continued to enjoy the story of 'How to Train a Dragon'. 
In English, the class have been tasked with writing a scene from How to train your Dragon, including correctly punctuated speech.
To help inform our writing we planned and acted out our scenes in the hall. It is a real pleasure doing drama with this class- they are such a great bunch of thespians. The drama activities certainly helped as everyone produced some excellent writing this week. 

In Maths, we have been practising adding 3 and 4 digits with the added challenging of crossing over 10 and 100. All of Hawthorn took this challenge on head first and demonstrated a good understanding.
In RE, we have been exploring the 'Trinity'. This weeks, lesson we gained the understanding of what a Gospel is. We looked at Matthew 3:13-17, The Baptism of Jesus and looked at what the children understood the water, the voice and the dove meant. 
We also explored the Romans religious beliefs from Paganism to Polytheism. We looked at the different Roman Gods and what they were in charged of. The children were amazing at recollecting their knowledge of Greek Gods from Year 3 and matching the Greek God to the same roles. 
We look forward to more amazing learning next week!
Well Done Hawthorn

What a topsy turvy week we have had?  The Indian summer appears to have finally but sadly come to an end and the usual wet, Dartmoor, torrential battering has commenced. Let's pray it won't be as consistently persistent as it was last year. 

With the weather being as it is, the children have been splitting their time in and out of the building (with more ins than outs than we would like). This always creates a charged atmosphere resulting in a range of reactions- strong bonds have been formed, stretched and broken over the last week and we hope that we can settle down into a more stable state next week. (Can you tell I'm busy refining our current states of matter topic in science?) 

Speaking of science, the class have made an excellent start looking at different states of matter and have shown a good understanding of the characteristics of each state. We have had a few interesting discussions: are there more than 3 states? (Without a search on Google can you think of the 4th?) Are all liquids compressible? And why is there a half blown up balloon in the corner of the classroom? Good questions with intriguing answers which we look forward to unearthing over the coming weeks. 

Maths- We have set the learning environment up differently this year with multiple activities and resources on hand for the children to explore. Maths has been enjoyed by all with every student relishing the chance to work more independently. This week we have worked well to compare 4 - digit numbers and to get our heads around subtracting from that tricky 0 digit and adding to a 9 digit.  With the help of little cubes, cuboids and place value charts we all seem to have a better understanding. 

English- Our focus is reading this year. We want to be reading more in class with the children also reading more at home. You will have received your child's reading journal this weekend which we strongly urge you to engage with wholeheartedly. I am personally over the moon that this is a school focus as one of my greatest joys as a teacher is to dance, skip and act out a text with the children I am teaching. 
We are reading Empire's End as our class novel.  This is a story about a Lybian-Roman family sent to Britain. It is a challenging read for the class tackling issues of patriarchy and slavery during the height of the Roman empire. Although fairly demanding the children are enthused and engaged with the text and enjoying being transported back to ancient Rome. 
During our English sessions, we have chosen to read How to train your Dragon, which the class are very excited about. Many of them have seen the film and are excited to make comparisons between the screen and the page. 
This week we also looked at the beautiful picture book Tell me a Dragon to spark the classes interest in these wonderous mythical beasts! They wrote and illustrated beautiful poems about their own imagined dragons. After the enthusiasm shown for these initial sessions I am sure this new topic will be enjoyed by all over the next two weeks. 

Have a lovely but (if you trust the forecast) wet weekend,

Mr Frewin and Miss Barton