This has been a very exciting final week to the half term for Beech Class! On Monday we replicated the Great Fire of London by taking all of our wonderful Tudor homes to the playground and lining them up very close together before setting them alight. It did take a little bit of work to get the houses to catch fire but once they did the fire spread fairly quickly. The enabled the children to see how the fire back in 1666 rolled through the houses in London causing massive destruction a large majority of the City.
We also had a visit from the local fire brigade. They were kind enough to let us ask some questions about the firefighting equipment they use so that we could compare it to the kind used back in the 17th century. Before they left they showed the children all the equipment they keep on the truck which helps them rescue people and animals in different scenarios. The best part for the children was definitely getting to sit inside the fire engine!
On Tuesday we took a trip to the Epping Forest District Museum where the children were able to showcase their knowledge of the Great Fire of London and investigate it even further. The museum itself was built in 1520 so the children were able to see first-hand how homes of this era are different from those built today and how this would have impacted how quickly the fire spread. They used maps to compare the City of London before the fire to how it looked after the fire. They were able to see how empty the City looked afterwards due to over 13,000 homes being destroyed. The children really enjoyed getting to make their own diary like Samuel Pepys using a feather and ink to write! It was a busy day and the children did remarkably well following instructions and immersing themselves in the activities. Thank you to Mr Hutt, Mrs Akinde and Ms Lane for accompanying us on our trip. Without support like this, we wouldn’t be able to go on trips to enrich the children’s learning so we greatly appreciate the time you took to be with us!
In Maths, Year 1 have been using number lines to count back and subtract. They enjoyed doing hops on a large number line outside in order to solve different subtraction problems! Year 2 have also enjoyed doing hands-on investigations to deepen their understanding of division. They used different objects to group and solve division problems linked to their 2 times tables.
We have also enjoyed exploring odd and even numbers!
In our music lesson, we drew pictures to show what we love about where we live. We learned the words ‘legato’ meaning smooth, and ‘staccato’ meaning spiky. We then chose instruments to represent these sounds. We tried playing them loudly, and quietly, legato and staccato. We had fantastic staccato xylophone sounds to represent jumping on trampolines at soft play. We used a rainmaker played legato to represent soft waves at a beach on a sunny day.
