Beech Tree Class Blog 2023-2024
Beech Tree Blog
Weekly Update-17/10/25
Mr Kyriacou (n.kyriacou) on: Beech Tree Blog
Hello everyone,
In maths, we have focused on column subtraction this week. The children have been using this method with no exchanges, one exchange and multiple exchanges. We’ve also been using the inverse operation to check that our calculations are accurate. It’s been lovely to hear the children’s explanations about why we have to exchange in the first place and seeing them coming up to the board to solve calculations and then coming up to do the inverse to check that their peer has solved the calculation accurately.
This week, in writing, we focused on understanding what subordinate conjunctions and clauses are and how to use them and then we moved onto starting our recount of our Viking trip to Murton Park. So far, the children have written three paragraphs, which covers their introduction, pottery making and bread making. They’re really enjoying the writing process, and we are constantly reading different pieces aloud to highlight what works really well and what could be improved. It’s lovely to see the children using all the resources they have to support them, taking all the advice they are given to improve their pieces as they go along and working so hard to include the great range of features required within this piece of writing.
In reading, we have continued reading Thorfinn the Nicest Viking, which the children are really enjoying. This week, the children made fantastic predictions about what will happen in the next chapter, and we had a lot of fun generating all of our ideas before the children wrote their predictions into their books. We’ve also focused on a range of other reading skills like retrieval and inference to answer questions based around the two chapters that have been read this week. We also applied these skills when we read a lovely short text about Diwali.
In science. We have moved onto our new topic of Nutrition and Diet, and this week we focused on the five food groups and understanding what food falls into each category and what each food group does for our bodies.
Take care,
Mr Kyriacou
Weekly Update 10/10/25
Mr Kyriacou (n.kyriacou) on: Beech Tree Blog
Hello everyone,
In reading, we have continued reading Thorfinn the Nicest Viking, which the children are really enjoying. We have focused on understanding and discussing the meaning of tricky vocabulary and focusing on retrieval and inference skills. The children are also really enjoying or story time book and love how funny the book is.
In maths, we continued our work on column addition. We have focused on using the column method, exchanging hundreds and thousands separately, and then focusing on multiple exchanges in one calculation. It’s been lovely to see how confident the children have become with using the method and being able to handle the multiple exchanges when necessary.
This week, in writing, we have continued with our recount unit of work focused on our trip to Murton Park. We have continued looking at the different features that will be required. We have focused on first person, banking a range of descriptive words and phrases based around our senses and feelings, using time adverbials and creating a range of powerful expanded noun phrases.
The children also completed the second half of their two-part art lesson this week. This split lesson focused on a painting by Thomas Gainsborough called Mr and Mrs Andrews. After discussing all the features of the painting and the way that the children would create depth within their paintings, the painting was split into quarters, and each child was given one of the quarters to focus on. The aim was to accurately recreate the quarter of the paining that they had been given, slowly working on the background features and then working on the foreground features in the second lesson. Once these were completed, they would be brought back together to create the complete painting. This was a challenging tow part lesson, but the children worked incredibly hard and listened to all the advice given to help them achieve certain effects, create the depth and produce an accurately recreated painting.
Take care,
Mr Kyriacou
Weekly Update-3/10/25
Mr Kyriacou (n.kyriacou) on: Beech Tree Blog
Hello everyone,
This week, in writing, we have started our new unit of work which is a recount that will focus on our trip to Murton Park. We have looked at a WAGOLL, identified the different features that were used throughout it, and we have slowly been focusing on each one of those features. So far we have focused on chronological order and past tense.
In maths, we completed our work on rounding at the beginning of the week and then we moved onto our addition and subtraction unit of work. The children have been learning to use the column method for addition. They have been learning to set it out correctly with all the digits in the correct place, using column headings so that they know the value of each digit in their numbers and making sure that they have included their + sign and = sign. So far we have focused on using the column method with no exchanges and exchanging tens. It’s been lovely to hear the children explain why the exchanges occur and for them to come up to the board and show their working out.
In reading, we have continue reading Thorfinn the Nicest Viking, which the children are really enjoying. We have focused on understanding and discussing the meaning of tricky vocabulary, retrieval and inference skills and we had such a lovely lesson when the children commentating and sharing opinions about the story so far int terms of likes, dislikes, questions they had and patterns that they’ve noticed. We’re also continuing with our story time book (Billionaire Boy) which the children are finding really funny and enjoying listening to.
This week, the children who were interested in becoming a class council member brought their posters in and presented them to the class whilst explaining why they would be the ideal candidate for the class. The class then voted for who they thought was the most suitable for the role. All the children did a great job and our class council member has now been selected.
Take care,
Mr Kyriacou :)