Beech Class have come back from the half term holiday feeling refreshed and ready for some more online learning. We started our new geography topic for this half term: 'The UK'. We have been looking at the flags of the countries that make up the UK and at the Union Jack and how it is a mix of the different flags. Some children even took the challenge to create their own family flags! Here is some of our learning:

We also started our new Science topic of 'Animals'. During the good weather, we went out into our local area and observed the animals we could see. We noted down the animals we saw, which group they fit in to and where we spotted them. Here is some of our work:

Well done for all your hard work, I have really enjoyed looking at all your learning. Hope that you have a fabulous weekend!

This half term, along with all the other brilliant learning we have been doing, we have been learning about Brunel and his engineering feats. We have had an ongoing DT project to research, design, build and evaluate our own bridges. Here are some of them:

In Art, we worked on some bridge art with beautiful backgrounds. Here are a few to share with you:

Finally, I want to say a HUGE thank you to the children, parents and carers. This has been such a hard term with so many unknowns, you have learnt how to use the new online learning platform and have given 100% with completing your work to such high standards. I am so proud of every single one of you. 
I hope you all have a fabulous half term holiday and enjoy a break from online learning. 
Stay safe and well!

Last week, it was Children's Mental Health week, to help celebrate this and raise awareness about mental health, we did lots of learning around our feelings and how to express ourselves. 
We read a lovely book called 'Ruby's Worry' by Tom Percival. It is all about a girl whose worry follows her around until she shares it with someone. 
First we thought about what our worries might look like. The children drew their worries and thought about what shape and what colour they might be. Here are some of their drawings:

The children then reflected on what to do if we are feeling worried. Our top tip is to talk to someone and share your worry, the children did really well at identifying the people they could talk to; Mummies, Daddies, Brothers, Sisters, Friends, Teachers, Grannies, Grampas etc. We also thought that doing an activity which makes you happy. We thought about the activities which made each of us happy, because we are so unique there were lots of different ideas. Here are some of them:

Not only did we think about activities that made us feel happy, but we also thought about our happy places. We challenged ourselves to draw a picture of our happy place and write about why we liked it. Some of us thought about places in our homes, some of us thought about imaginary places with unicorns and some people thought about places abroad or where they have been on holiday. Here are some of our ideas. We wonder where your happy place is?

In R.E we learnt about parables and how they are special stories in the Bible which teach us lessons, we focused on the parable of 'The Lost Son'. To keep on the theme of mental health and reflecting on feelings, we thought about the characters in the story and how they felt. We drew each of the main characters and describes their feelings around the edge of our drawings. Lots of children did really well at empathising with the characters. 

There is still so much learning the children did which we would love to share, but this is getting very long, so we will finish with some science! In science, we have been learning about everyday materials and their properties. The children were challenged to go on a material hunt around their houses and find as many different materials as they could. Once they have gathered them together, they had to see if they could match the material to it's property, it was hard word, but the children did a great job!

We have had a couple of pirate weeks in Beech class, we read the story of 'Sayeeda, the Pirate Princess'. In the story, Sayeeda had a treasure chest filled with lots of important treasure. In Literacy, we thought about what important things we would keep in our treasure chests. We drew pictures of our treasure chests and wrote about why we picked these items. 

Later in the week, we became real pirates and drew our own treasure maps. Once we had drawn our maps, we wrote a pirate story which included the map. Some children were very creative with their story writing. Please have a look at our work below:

In Science, we have been learning about different materials and their properties. We thought about materials with waterproof properties. We then used these materials to make our own Pirate ships, we then tested our ships in the bath or sink at home! Using a straw, we created waves in the water to test the suitability of the ship's material. 
Have a look at our pictures below:

Finally, in Art, we used recycled toilet rolls and paper plates to create our own Pirate models. The children searched their homes and school for other materials they could recycle and use for their models. They found wool, straw, paper, cotton wool, felt and many other materials, can you spot them all?