Beech Tree Class Blog 2023-2024
Beech Tree Blog
Weekly Update-5/9/25
Mr Kyriacou (n.kyriacou) on: Beech Tree Blog
Hello everyone,
Welcome back to Rufford Park and welcome to our weekly class blog where we will share the learning we have undertaken in class. It will be updated every Friday each week of term. What a fantastic start to the year! It has been lovely getting to know the children this week. They have settled in really well and I have been extremely impressed with how positive and enthusiastic they have all been whilst settling into our new classroom and routines. I have had such an enjoyable start to each day because the children have welcomed me every day with such happy beaming smiles despite potentially underlying start of term nerves.
We are very excited to share that we have been able to organise a visit to Murton Park this half term to support us with our new topic about the Vikings and Anglo-Saxons. Further details regarding the trip have been shared via ParentPay.
In reading, the children have been learning about the importance of reading and how it can support their learning. We have focused on on the different reading skills that we will be using throughout the year, which are represented in the form of dogs e.g Inference Iggy and Predicting Pip. Our class novel, which is related to our topic this term, is called Thorfinn the Nicest Viking and the Terrible Treasure by David MacPhail, and the children have already made some great predictions about what it might be about just based on what they could see on the front cover. We have also chosen our story time book, which is Billionaire Boy by David Walliams, and the children have been really enjoying that so far. The children have also made their own lovely bookmarks and created their cubist style portraits. The portraits will form a lovely display in the corridor out side the Beech Tree classroom.
Take care,
Mr Kyriacou
Weekly Update-18/7/25
Mr Kyriacou (n.kyriacou) on: Beech Tree Blog
Hello everyone,
This week, the children published their final piece of writing of the year. It was their instruction text about how to make Stone Age clothing.
In art, the children created their own Stonehenge silhouette paintings. Some paintings show a sun rise and some show a full moon at night. They all worked very hard on them and the finished pieces looked lovely!
The children also brought in their Stone Age to Iron Age projects this week and presented them to the class. Parents were also invited to see the projects and they were very impressed. The projects were absolutely amazing, really creative and the children should be really proud of them!
The children also took part in the Park Life music performance which celebrated everything musical that children in different year groups have done throughout the year. Beech Tree performed their own version of Hot Cross Buns. Two children also performed part of the song as a duet and one child played part of the song on their own.
In reading, we have been reading and completing our story time book called Dead Man’s Cove, which is a prequel to one of our class novels that we read earlier in the year. The children have really enjoyed it and it’s been a brilliant story time book to end the year with.
Well done for all of your hard this year! I hope you all have an amazing break and make sure to stay safe and look after yourselves!
Take care,
Mr Kyriacou
Weekly Update-11/7/25
Mr Kyriacou (n.kyriacou) on: Beech Tree Blog
Hello everyone,
This week, we completed our unit of work on position and direction in maths. The children have been learning how to describe position using coordinates, plot coordinates on a grid using the x and y axis, drawing 2-D shapes on a grid and translating on a grid. The children have done extremely well with this short unit of work in maths and made great progress.
In our reading, the children really enjoyed a task where they came up with alternative titles for each chapter of Stig of the Dump. There were some very creative ideas which still worked perfectly with the events of each chapter. The children also reviewed the book, wrote a small summary and what their favourite part of the book was. They then drew their favourite scene and gave the book a rating out of 10.
For writing, the children’s final big piece of writing this year will be an instruction text. They have looked at a WAGOLL instruction text and identified all the features required. This focused on how to make a Stone Age fire. The children have then been watching videos and doing online research about how to make Stone Age clothing. They noted down all their ideas down about what resources would be required and the necessary steps. Finally, they wrote their first draft of their instruction text.
The children have been growing red sunflowers over the last 5 weeks, which have been growing extremely well, and the children have loved looking after them and watching them grow. This week, it was finally time for the children to take them home and continue to look after them.
In art, over the last two weeks, the children have been creating their fruit plushies. They have used the sewing skills that they have learnt to stitch together and stuff the fruit that they chose to work on. This was a challenging task for the children, but they learnt the skills very quickly, and with a lot of determination, focus and resilience, they created some beautiful pieces that they should be very proud of. Well done!
Take care,
Mr Kyriacou