Beech Tree Class Blog 2023-2024
Beech Tree Blog
Weekly Update-14/1/22
Mr Kyriacou (n.kyriacou) on: Beech Tree Blog
Hello everyone,
This week, in writing, the children have been focusing on retelling the first chapter of Grandpa Chatterji. We have been focusing on using fronted adverbials, adverbs, adjectives and using inverted commas for speech. The children have produced some excellent pieces of work and have put a lot of effort into their retelling of the first chapter. They really enjoyed reading their pieces out to the rest of the class and we all gave our feedback in terms of what we thought worked really well, but we also made one point, for each piece, about what could be improved, in order to turn the writing from a good piece into an excellent piece.
In maths, we have been focusing on short multiplication using the column method. Whilst this was challenging at the beginning, it's been amazing to see how much the children have pushed themselves and persevered in order to tackle the challenges. Later in the week, as their confidence had grown with the method, I also allowed the children the opportunity to create their own word problems involving short multiplication and allowing other children to solve them.
The children also conducted a science investigation which revolved around the properties of gas and whether the gas inside fizzy drinks (carbon dioxide) adds weight to the drink when fizzy and whether it reduces the weight when a lot of the gas has escaped and the drink has gone flat. The children really enjoyed the investigation and we did get some good results.
Take care,
Mr Kyriacou :)
Weekly Update-7/1/22
Mr Kyriacou (n.kyriacou) on: Beech Tree Blog
Hello everyone,
I hope you had an enjoyable Christmas… Happy New Year to you all! It was lovely to see everyone back in school this week, the children have made a brilliant start to 2022.
- In geography / ICT we introduced our new topic for the Spring term – India & Fairtrade. The children developed their enquiry skills by using Google Earth to ‘go for a walk’ in India. We discovered a wide range of geographical features – including mountains, deserts, forests, jungles, lakes, huge cities and tiny villages.
- In English we read the first chapter of our new class reader - the brilliant ‘Grandpa Chatterji’ by Jamila Gavin – after making predictions and learning new vocabulary.
- In maths we developed our multiplication and division skills – focusing on factor pairs and multiplying 3 numbers together
- In PE on Wednesday, we had our first Lacrosse lesson with Sam from Fisical.
- In science, we are focusing on States of Matter and have been identifying the properties of solids, liquids and gases.
Well done to everyone who completed the holiday reading challenge! As always, the biggest impact parents/carers can make on their child’s learning is to encourage a love of reading for pleasure – and by listening to them read at least five times per week. It is little surprise that the children who read the most at home last term, also made the most progress in their end-of-term reading comprehension tests.
BRONZE BADGE = x2, x5, x10
SILVER BADGE = x3, x4, x6
GOLD BADGE = x7, x8, x9
SUPER GOLD = x11, x12 and all others at speed
Have a lovely weekend!
Mr Kyriacou :)
Weekly Update 10/12/21
Mr Kyriacou (n.kyriacou) on: Beech Tree Blog
Hello everyone,
In maths, we have been working on our 7 and 9x tables, focusing specifically on strategies that can help us solve trickier calculations based on what we already know. As can be seen below, we have 9x7 as our our calculation and the children have come up with different ways of working it out, using other times tables that they already know and are confident with, which will help them solve 9x7 much easier. Being able to use such strategies will help them with solving more complex calculations in the future.
The children have also been busy making some lovely Christmas cards this week and they have also helped with creating decorations for the classroom and setting up our tree.
Take care,
Mr Kyriacou :)