What have we been learning about in class?

Start of Summer 1 up to 9.6.17

In English, we have continued to hone our skills in creative writing. We were given some pictures to look at, then we wrote a short narrative based on the image. Each of us then performed our stories to the class- some of us even used a microphone as you can see in the pictures below!

19.5.17

This week in English, we have written advertisements for the fast-approaching Maypole Festival! We worked really hard to try and persuade the reader to attend this triennial event. Here are some extracts for your pleasure:

"This event is filled with ribbons gliding through the air and food and drink to tantalise your taste buds!" ~ Ava

"Triennially, the event happens (every three years). All around you, you will smell: burgers, hotdogs, candyfloss and grass." ~ Skye

"As you step out of your house, hear the sweet sound of music; see girls dance in clean, white dresses and boys in shorts and shirts." ~ Holly

"Mr Roycroft stated, 'Although I have never been to this event before, I like to watch the children practice!' (Year 4 teacher)" ~ Emily

What superb punctuation and ambitious vocabulary boys and girls! Keep up the great work!

...have they managed to persuade you to go?

5.5.17

This week in English, we have been touching up on the following word classes:

• verbs
• adverbs
• adjectives
• adverbial phrases

We have practised using them in sentences in preparation for some dramatic writing very soon!

27.4.17

Dear Sir or Madam,

We are writing to tell you all about what we have been learning about this week in English: Letter Writing.

We were very excited about getting stuck into writing this week... after a long holiday at home and a maths-heavy first week back! We had the thrilling task of writing either:

• a letter of complaint, or;
• a general letter of communication

...to absolutely anyone we wanted! We chose singers, Youtubers, sports personalities and more! Once these have been marked over the weekend, we will get some extracts online to share with you all.

Yours faithfully,

Hawthorn Class

29.3.17

In preparation for our museum exhibition on Friday, we have written detailed reports on the Roman Army. We then wrote diary entries to capture what life might have been like for a Roman soldier at the time. Pop into school on Friday at 2.30pm to see some of our fantastic work!

17.3.17

This week, alongside more creative writing and lots of science report writing, we took time to analyse some poetry by Christina Rossetti. We analysed the structure of three of her poems, drawing up comparisons between each one. We were very impressed by her use of powerful verbs to give the wind human-like characteristics, and even more impressed by her ability to make the wind seem so very different in each one: from evil and powerful to royal and infinite.

Well done to Ash for spotting the infinity symbol in the illustration, to represent the idea that the wind is never-ending!

10.3.17

In Hawthorn class, we are striving to be passionate writers, by ensuring we have high levels of confidence, and all the necessary tools for igniting our writing.

This week, we have been looking at still images and asking each other questions to provoke deep thinking. We found that this really inspired us to write creatively, so we will be doing lots of this in the future!

We have made sure to incorporate some SPAG elements in our work, such as fronted adverbials and embedded subordinate clauses.

Check out some extracts of our fantastic work below, based on telling the story behind the image:

"So I pawed myself gracefully down to the middle of the room. I looked all around me and saw a jar, stood on a coffee table, with lots of colourful objects." ~ Martha Harrison

"I saw something on the side so I jumped cautiously up to see what it was. Suddenly, I heard a tapping noise. Tap, tap, tap. As it got louder, I started to feel nervous." ~ Jacob Gillan

"Hi, my name is Alice. You may know my name, but you don't know my story. In a minute, I'm going to tell you about the night that changed my life." ~ Ava Proctor

3.3.17

Because of our extremely hard work with the 500 words stories last week, we spent English lessons this week focusing on SPAG elements (or GPS as it is now called). We studied Determiners, Fronted Adverbials and a range of other word classes. On Thursday, we had World Book Day- be sure to check out the link on the Hawthorn Homepage to check this out! :)

24/2/17

This week we fished out our story plans from before the holidays and finished our 500 Word stories before the deadline on Thursday. Our challenge was to choose an everyday object and imagine what life would be like from the perspective of that object...this inspired some really creative and engaging stories which we are sharing in class next week! Some of the clever stories discuss a day in the life of:

• an aeroplane
• a toy soldier
• a tennis ball
• a daisy

and many more!

3.2.17

This week we have been learning about deserts in Geography to the point where we are complete experts on the subject! Really- we can tell you all sorts, from plants to animals and beyond. We have taken our extensive knowledge and began to structure it into a non-chronological report, by learning the features of a good report and then transferring these skills into practice! We will share some of our finished reports very soon :)

27.1.17

This week in English we have had a big focus on editing and improving our work. We uplevelled our diary entries from last week- then we took an old story that we wrote and used our skills to improve it too! 

Dear Diary,

This week in English we have been reading lots of different diary entries, including famous extracts from Anne Frank's diary. Thanks to Holly for bringing in a copy of the book from home! 

Watch this space to see some examples of our fantastic work when it is done.

Read all about it! Spaceships have crash landed in Barwick Primary! Luckily the journalists of Hawthorn class have been on hand to document the historic event. These are unedited, unmarked examples of the great independent work from this half term- not bad at all for rough copies! Well done to the children for volunteering to share these raw examples.

Can you find your child's work with them?

Keep scrolling to see some great examples of other news-related work we have been doing in class...