Apologies for forgetting the Class 4 blog last week. Certain events took me away from my desk on Friday afternoon and by the time I was finished it was time to go home and the blog passed out of my mind until about four o'clock on Sunday afternoon. So I now have two weeks to catch up on.


Last week we looked at black sports figures as part of Black History Month (which is in October over here). After doing some research on all sorts of sporting 'pioneers', we settled on studying Jackie Robinson, the first black man of the 20th Century to join a Major League baseball team. We discussed the idea of segregation in the American south and the idea of "separate but equal" that was entrenched in US law at the time. We researched how Robinson was treated by fans, other teams, and even his fellow players in the first few years. We then wrote a formal letter to Robinson asking him about how he managed to persevere and even help the Dodgers win several championships.


We carried the baseball theme over to art last week when Mrs Pearcy helped us cut out silhouettes of baseball players and painted them to look like they were moving.


The whole thing culminated in assemblies yesterday when they whole school got together and showed off the work they were doing. Class 4 re-enacted a famous scene where Robinson was helped during one moment when the fans were being especially abusive and a fellow player, Pee Wee Reese, came over and put his arms around Robinson, hushing the crowd. We read out one of our letters and showed off some of our art. The work that the school did will be compiled into a portfolio so that people can see the work that Sandridge produced.


We finished up our science topic on classification of living things over the last two weeks, the children becoming quite adept at making branching databases for finding similarities and differences between life forms. Then they did their own research on the different classes of animals and presented the information to the other students.


We explored mummification and pyramids in our Egypt topic, looking at the ways they changed over hundreds of years. We learned the proper procedure for creating a mummy and what a canopic jar is for, and then we looked at the history of their tombs, angled buildings called "mastabas" that became the pyramids we all know today.


We also finished up our work on the Haka dance and improvising moves to go along with it. We will switch to a new type of dancing after the half term that should allow us a bit more freedom to try out some interesting moves. With Mr Clark, they just finished of playing football, and the class really came together in the last game and started working well as teams! Here's to hoping that trend continues in all other endeavours.


So, we will meet up again after a much-needed week off. As a quick reminder, there will be no spelling words until we come back, but the kids can always practice their maths, and the week-long break may be a great time to catch up on the big project, which is due in five weeks!


Have a good half term break!