Beech Tree Class Blog 2023-2024
Beech Tree Blog
Weekly Update 10/1/25
Mr Kyriacou (n.kyriacou) on: Beech Tree Blog
Hello everyone,
This week, we have started reading our new book called Kidnap in the Caribbean by Lauren St John. The children have made predictions about what the story will be about based on the front cover of the book and we have read the first six chapters of the book. The children have also completed vocabulary work and retrieval and inference work based on those six chapters. It’s lovely to see how excited they are about the book already.
In our writing, we have started working on our diary writing unit of work. The children will be writing diaries based on a true story of two survivors of the Mt St Helens 1980 eruption. We have looked at the features of a diary entry, read the story about the two survivors, done freeze frames based on the emotions of these survivors at different points in the story and we have focused on identifying and using time conjunctions in our own sentences which relate to the story. I was really impressed with the sentences that the children came up with.
In maths, we have focused on understanding what factors are, identifying factors of numbers, using factor pairs and multiplying by 10. The children have made great progress with this.
In science, we have started our unit of work on sound, with the focus being on vibrations for the first part. The children learnt about how sounds are made, which parts of instruments create the sound and what sound can travel through. The second part of the lesson focused on ears. We looked at the different parts of the ear and what the role of each part was in relation to sounds that are created. The children really enjoyed the two part lesson and were so keen to show off their knowledge at the end!
Finally, well done to everyone who has been in all week. Even though the week has been made trickier due to the weather, your attitude and behaviour towards your learning has been amazing!
Take care,
Mr Kyriacou
Weekly Update-20/12/24
Mr Kyriacou (n.kyriacou) on: Beech Tree Blog
Hello everyone,
This week, the children were focusing on their final rehearsals for their Christmas performance, which included a range of lovely carols, along with Winter themed poems that the children had produced as part of their poetry unit of work in English. When it came to the performance, the children were absolutely amazing. The narration, the poems and the singing were all excellent! Well done!
Our final European Art and Artists lesson revolved around Coco Chanel. The children learnt all about her life and the fashion brand that she is known for. Hats were the specific focus of the lesson in relation to Chanel and the children were tasked with designing and creating their own hats. The children were given some options about the type of hat that they wanted to design and create and then set to work creating them. They used cardboard and tape to create the basic structure of their hats and then strengthened them with a layer papier mâché. Once they did this, using the exterior designs that they had originally drawn, they drew their designs onto their hats and painted them. Finally, once these were dry, the children added their own extra details onto the hats e.g feathers. These were fully completed over 3 lessons and the children have done a great job, as can be seen below.
The children also made their own lovely Christmas cards this week. These designs required lots of patience and good listening to create the proper three-dimensional effect with them and I think everyone did a fantastic job with them!
The children also had their Christmas party today and really enjoyed it.
There is no homework over the holidays, however, we are encouraging the children to still be reading to an adult as often as possible over the two-week break. We are also encouraging multiplication tables practise on TT Rockstars or Maths frame whenever it is possible to as well.
Have a great Christmas!
Take care,
Mr Kyriacou :)
Weekly Update-13/12/24
Mr Kyriacou (n.kyriacou) on: Beech Tree Blog
Hello everyone,
This week, in English, we have published our Winter themed poems and have been practising to perform them for our Christmas performance. The children have produced some fantastic pieces of work and it’s been lovely to see them all enjoying the performance part of their poetry unit.
In maths, we have focused on multiplying and dividing by 1 and 0 as well as multiplying by 3 numbers. The children have also been practising their x tables on maths frame in preparation for their x tables assessment in June. They have all been working extremely hard and it’s lovely to see all the children’s scores steadily increasing.
In our reading, we have completed our class novel, The Thieves of Ostia, and it's fantastic to see how much the children enjoyed it. We also completed our story time book, The Boy in the Dress, which the children also enjoyed. As the children enjoyed The Thieves of Ostia so much, they have voted to read the sequel novel as part of our story time book next term, this is called The Secrets of Vesuvius, which we will start to read next week.
In history, we concluded our final lesson of the unit by having a debate about whether you would be for or against the Romans coming to Britain if you lived in Britain at the time. The children prepared all their ideas for the for and against parts of their arguments and then chose which side they would be on. It was lovely to see the children applying all of the knowledge that they have learnt throughout this term to argue their cases for both sides of the argument.
Take care,
Mr Kyriacou