Middle Department News

This week in Year 3

English  

Dragons have arrived in year 3! In English we have designed our own dragons, based on the book ‘Tell me a Dragon’ by Jackie Morris. This has inspired us to create adjectives to describe our dragons and adverbs to describe how our dragons move. We have even used some alliteration and similes!

These are just some of the dragons that we have designed.  

Co-Curricular Club

Inspired by Year 3’s new English topic on dragons, Lego Club have been creating their own pet dragons.  Children have been set the challenge of seeing if they can make movable wings, tail or head.  Still a work in progress, check out our creations so far! 

Maths

We celebrated “Twosday” this week. The children were asked what they thought they might be doing in 22 years time. Here are some of their wonderful answers!  

Forest School

What a wonderful week to have Forest School! All our fears of the woods being out of bounds were blown away this morning, with a blaze of warm winter sun and a soft, fresh breeze. 3O whittled and role-played – food was prepared in the mud kitchen and injuries were diagnosed and bones were re-set by some excellent doctors in training. The whittlers really enjoyed using a peeler to create wands; they are now all able to help in the kitchen anytime carrots need peeling!  A glorious morning!

Please see some of our photos below: 

This week in Year 4

Welcome back and we hope you all had an enjoyable and relaxing half-term break.  

In History, we have now entered the exciting era of the Vikings which we will spend the rest of the year studying.

The highlight of this unit will be our Viking Day in June when the children will spend the day with our very own Viking from the past, Thorulf Hammrson.

More details to follow next term. 

In English, we have begun our next unit of work on poetry and this week we have been looking at some of the poems by James Carter. Below are a few lines based upon James Carter’s ‘Happy Poem’ about things that makes us happy. 

Happy as a doodle circling the blank page 

Happy as my dogs chewing a treaty bone 

Happy as a pizza dripping with cheese 

Happy as a forest swaying in peace 

Happy as sugar tingling on my tongue 

Happy as a candy shop bursting with flavour 

Happy as a grand piano being tingled 

Happy as my cat having a snooze on my warm bed 

Happy as sliding with a football on a damp, muddy pitch 

In DT, the children are now well underway with their mini woodwork projects. They have already created their own cubes which will be decorated in their art lessons and are just putting the finishing touches to their tangram sets before moving onto to design and making their own board game.

Next Thursday, 3 March, is World Book Day and the children will have the opportunity to come into School dressed up as their favourite book character if they wish to.

In 2020 World Book Day across the UK raised enough money to send 47,335 books to communities around the world who need them most. 

For some inspiration, the weblink below may prove useful:                                  

  https://www.worldbookday.com/dressing-up/ 

If you would like your child to purchase a book from the book shop that day, and have not yet indicated this on the Google Form, please can you complete the form before next Wednesday 2 March.  

Forest School with 4B

Next week, 4L will be having their second Forest School session of the term. 

Aylmerton Trip

We are now into the final stretch of our preparations for our residential trip to Aylmerton.  Next week, I will send out a letter containing all the necessary final pieces of information and a kit list. There will also be a copy in your child’s Google Classroom.

WOW!

Finally, if your child did anything ‘WOW’ over the half-term holiday, please do let us know and we can add it to our ‘WOW’ Wall and to their Beechwood Park Achievement Award book.

This Week in Year 5

Year 5 pupils have returned after the half term break on fine form! They are very exited to get going with their Button Box rehearsals and bring to life the first ever Beechwood Year 5 and 6 collaborative musical. Year 5 is a particularly musical year group and we suspect that this production will be seriously impressive! The pupils are also throwing their energies into the House Music Competition and it has been wonderful to see so many pupils with the confidence to perform their pieces in front of their friends in music lessons. There is no doubt that the standard of the entries is very high.

In the classrooms, we had fun celebrating ‘Twosday’ through numeracy, literacy, puzzles and creativity. A quick form time game involved drawing the digit 2 and passing it onto a friend to see if they could create a picture from it and this sparked the most brilliant ideas and examples! A maths starter activity involved using the digit 2 four times exactly, with any combination of mathematical operations to give a total of 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 10 & 12. This too sparked plenty of debate and maths talk.

In Science the Year 5 pupils have moved onto the second rotation out of electricity, light and sound and, having glimpsed their friends busy working on the first rotation, anticipation of the new topics is high.

Next week we are looking forward to the traditional inter-house pancake race on Shrove Tuesday and to World Book Day on Thursday. Thank you to all of the Year 5 parents who help to make world book day costumes come to life for their children as we all celebrate pour collective love of reading and books. As Form Teachers, we may keep our face paint and outlandish costumes a little more subtle this year so that those of you who have academic consultations with us on that day are still able to recognise us…

Wishing you all a happy weekend,

The Year 5 Form Teachers

World Book Day – Thursday 3 March

From the Library

A Storm of Sisters by Michelle Harrison

When the Widdershins sisters and Granny are called away in deepest winter to look after cousin Clarissa, it doesn’t take long for adventure and trouble to find them. The town of Wilderness has plenty to explore with its frozen lake and winter market, as well as being haunted by a doomed highwayman and his secret love. But the legends are true and seeing a ghostly figure one night, the girls realise that Granny is in terrible danger. 

A Storm of Sisters concludes the Pinch of Magic series in characteristic captivating style.

Head’s Commendations