Welcome to Mars Class!

Mars class is a mixed class of Year 1 and Year 2 children.

Our teacher is Miss Kelly. Mrs Williams and Mrs Nash are our teaching assistants. 

 The ethos of our class is to develop happy, confident and independent learners who are willing to try their best and find success in their everyday learning. Every child is unique and we aim to tailor lessons to the individual needs of the children.

On this page you can find updates about our learning and any special adventures we have been on. We hope you enjoy reading about our learning journey!

Mars Class 2023.2024

Summer Term

Introducing the future footballers of the England team.

We have had so much fun having a girl morning. The girls have had a great time dressing up and learning some new football games.

Spring Term

Week commencing 18/3/24:

This week in phonics the children have been practising alternative aw sounds and split diagraphs particularly in alien words. In spelling practise we have been practising y making as ‘igo’ sound e.g sky, fly.

In English we have finished writing our fantasy story of Bob working at a fantasy setting. We have now started to look at non-chronological report, identifying their features and writing an introduction.

In maths we have been focusing on mass, identifying which is lighter and heavier and measuring using non-official measurements.

We have also been practising making axels and started designing our toy cars in DT, looking at how Judaism and Christian Easter celebrations differ and on Friday we went to the museum of computing history.

Week commencing 26.02.24:

This week in English we have started our new fantasy stories, the children have been thinking of how their character would speak as an astronaut.

In maths we have been recapping some things we have found tricky for example, money, division and missing number sums.

This week all children have been benchmarked so take a look to see what book band your child is on.

Finally we have been busy in art looking at composition in our sketches, making surprise cards for an upcoming event, practised our dance skills and even planned a birthday party for Speedy!

Have a lovely weekend.

Safer Internet day:

I couldn't help myself I just had to show you what we have been up to today.

Firstly we started talking about reliable sources. We have been trained up to be super searches, this means questioning if it is reliable, using trusted safe search engines, adding more information to our search and if we are not sure stop and think.

We also talked about how we can be creators instead of consumers of the internet. We made a padlet using ipads to share our ideas in a class discussion. Finally we spent the afternoon playing with apps that can make us into creators. The children have shared what they would like to use more to enable them to be creators.

Week commencing 29/01/24:

This week in Mars class, in English the children have had a new book. They have been using their inference skills to predict what will happen in the plot and who is the main character. They have also been writing questions for Miss Kelly to find out more about the book to see if they predicted correctly.

In maths the children have recapped their learning on arrays, practised counting in 2/5/10s and applying this knowledge to dividing by 5.

Also this week we have been curators by looking at old toys from st Neots museum, in art the children have created artist studies to help them explore form and texture, in pshe we have been looking at pride by Saturn class sharing stories and creating an alphabet with Jupiter class.

Have a lovely weekend!

Week commencing 22/01/24:

This week in phonics Year 1s have been looking at y making an i sound, soft c, soft g and alternative oa. Year 2s have been looking at when 'kn' is an appropriate spelling and turning nouns into plurals.

In english we have continued to look at tradition tales by using our hulk powers to level up our adjectives and using coordinating conjunctions and and but. In maths we have started to look at multiplication using arrays to work out the answer. We have also been doing some observational drawing using viewfinders, in RE we looked at orthodox christanity and created our own 'icons'. Finally in forest school Mars did a survey on our school about how to make it more eco friendly.

Have a lovely weekend!

Week commencing 07/01/24:

First week back and it has been full of learning.

This week in phonics Year 1 have recapped their sounds and have now received all of their flashcards so have a little look over the weekend.

We have wrote our own narrative stories about a mouse and a bird using a story plan in English and looked at some poems to make an anthology. In maths we have recapped our previous learning of place value before moving onto money. The children have identified tens and ones, used this knowledge in addition and subtraction and then applied to finding the missing number/difference.

We have also discovered new sketching techniques in art, practised new dance moves around ice skating in PE, asked questions about what it is like to be a reverend in RE. We looked at our new topic 'changes within living memory' and came up with questions we want to research further. In forest school we are looking at how we can become more environmental in school and in the local community We visited the local river to see the effects it has had to the local area.

Have a lovely weekend!

Autumn Term

Week commencing 10/12/23:

This week we have been full of Christmas cheer!

This week we have had our nativity performance and I am so proud of my little stars putting on a show for everyone.

In phonics we have been recapping or sounds and introduced au.

In maths the children have been investigating 2D and 3D shapes. In English we have been plan and writing our letter to Santa ready to post next week.

We have also been creating templates for our hand puppets and cutting out fabric. We have been finishing our KWHL grids and creating Christmas crafts.

Have a lovely weekend!

Week Commencing 4/12/23:

Last week the children had the christingle service, we looked at what each part represented and made our own for the afternoon service.

Year 1s have been practising the alternative ue sounds and which sound is often used when placed in a word. The years 2s have started to look at the special w spelling rule.

In English we have been looking at letters inspired by ‘The day the crayons quit’. The children used adjectives to help justify their reasons. In maths the children have also been looking at word problems, missing numbers and adding/subtracting over 10.

We have also been practising lots for our upcoming nativity show, in DT we practised the running stitch and have been finishing off some secret Christmas creative tasks!

Week commencing 20/11/23:

This week has been assessment week and I am so incredibly proud of my little team!

(I’m not sure who loved having Harry Styles and Taylor Swift playing in the background more me or them. )

I have also delayed the year 2 spellings test to Monday as they have worked so hard on their assessment papers.

This week we have also been practising our nativity, creating mood boards in DT, designing our own burpees in PE, creating nativity props and watched a film on the different classes that boarded the Titanic.

Well done Mars class!

Week commencing 13/11/23:

This week in phonics Year 1s have been practising using alternative sounds oa, oe, o-e and ur, er, ir.

Year 2s have been focusing on adding suffixes and which plural to use.

In English we have been looking at persuasive language for job adverts, the children have been writing exclamations, statements, commands and questions. They have also been using apostrophes for contraction words for example can not turns to can’t. In maths Year 1s have been using subtraction and their knowledge of number bonds to find the missing parts. Year 2s have also been using their number bond knowledge to subtract and add over 10s.

We have also been practising our balancing skills in PE, created a timeline for the titanic in topic and have been practising our nativity.

Week commencing 30/10/23:

First week back already!

This week in phonics the children have recapped split diagraphs ane have some have started to complete a phonics check tricky troll has sent to us. Year 2s have been looking at spelling rules when adding suffixes.

In English we have been looking at simple past tense and past progressive tense, we created our own character using descriptive language (the children had a chance to be cheeky and steal adjectives from their friends) and made a story plan.

In maths Year 1s have been recapping fact families and adding 1 digit numbers. Year 2s have also recapped fact families, have been adding/subtracting 1 digit numbers from numbers up to 100 and using our number bonds to 10 to work out addition sums quickly.

This week we also practised our new spelling rule for next weeks spelling test, there is a copy of these also on tapestry and on the website along with homework books. We have started to practise our nativity songs. In RE we created our own harvest poems and in DT we started to research puppets.

Have a lovely weekend and stay safe whilst enjoying fireworks!

Week commencing 16/10/23:

This week has been jam packed!

The year 1s in phonics have been introduced to ie, a-e, are and alternative c. The year 2s have been focused on letter families and plurals.

In English we continued our tradition tales with little red riding hood and the boy who cried wolf. The children have been using coordinating and subordinating conjunctions to write interesting sentences and could verbally answer along writing their answers in a full sentence.

In maths we have been looking at fact families, this is where we use the 3 numbers to create different number sentences based around number bonds.

We also went to the church for harvest festival, compared human and physical features in North America and South America in topic, discussed what is a democracy in PSHE. Created a human lifecycle in science and this afternoon we created a haunted Halloween window.

I am so super proud of these little ones for achieving so much in this half term and so glad you were able to see their progress at parents evening!

Have a lovely week!

Week commencing 9.10.23:

This week have been so busy, we are really trying to focus on our letter formation and have been practising every morning.

In maths Year 2s have been counting in 3s and Year 1s have been matching numerals to the written word.

In English we have a new traditional story ‘The story blanket’ we role played as a character using inverted commas, we wrote expanded noun phrases and created a story map.

In art we made our prints and printed onto our chosen fabric, in R.E we looked at how harvest is celebrated Judaism and in forest school we looked at evidence for animals in the school ground.

I have also sent home with the Years 1s a wallet from phonics fairy to ensure the children have their phonics pack, reading book and reading diary. Please make sure they have these everyday and write when you have read with your child. Year 2s I have attached a common exception word list to your reading record to practise reading and spelling.

1 more week to go!

Week Commencing 2/10/23:

This week has been full of fun activities.

In phonics Year 1s have moved on from phase 4 to phase 5 you will find the new sounds in their phonics packs.

In English the children have been writing their own ‘The storm whale’ stories. We have focused on what a sentence needs and what we can add to make it even better.

In maths we have been comparing groups, tens and ones and numbers to 100 using the vocabulary greater than, less than and equal to.

In art we practised printing our repeated tile on to paper, in topic we created globes with the equator and discussed the impact of the equator on the climate. In science Mr Anns gave the children the big question ‘are two eyes better than one?’ Where the children conducted their own fair test and we have been practising our harvest song. In PE the children continued to develop their fundamental movements by using surrounding space and we voted for house captains and school councillors.

This week we also had an assembly all about recycling which was full of facts! Well done Mars!

Week commencing 18/9/23:

This week in English we started our new book ‘Storm whale’, we focused on looking at the importance of adjectives in our writing. Writing the perfect sentence and focusing on the characters feelings. In maths Year 1s have continued looking at numbers to 10, partitioning to look at the number bonds within 10, one more and one less. Year 2s have been flexibly partitioning numbers to 100.

We also did our first spelling test this Thursday and introduced the spelling race, children can move along the spelling race by getting 9/10 in their test or getting a spelling word wall badge.

In art we started to take print inspiration from nature in the ocean, we learnt about forms of technology and logged onto a computer independently in computing, in PSHE we considered our responsibilities to each other and in topic we compared the continent Europe to Asia and Oceania. The children also had great fun turning the playground in to Oceania and Asia.

Week Commencing 11/9/23:

Second week and these little ones are smashing their learning.

In English we finished our own version of ‘In our hands’ the children took great care in ensuring their letter formation was correct, they had capital letters, full stops and had exciting adjectives. They also had lots of fun portraying their character emotion, I’m sure you will enjoy those photos as much as I have!

In maths year 1 have been looking at numbers to 10 and starting to partition into parts and wholes. Year 2 have been looking at numbers to 100 and partitioning them into tens and ones.

In art the children looked at sibling artists Margaret and Christine Wertheim who created crocheted coral. In PE we did multi skills and Year 1s had their second balancability session. In forest school the children explored the grounds with Mrs Tickle and recapped the rules of forest school. In RE we looked at how Christian’s celebrate harvest and thanked God. In Science we looked at the human body and created our own posters.

A lot of amazing learning from Mars class!

Week Commencing 4/9/23:

Wow first week back, I am so very proud of Mars Class adjusting to a new class and developing new relationships!

This week we have had creative week all about the story 'In our hands' by Lucy Farfort. We annotated our thoughts about the front cover, described the illustrations and created our own characters with speech bubbles asking others to help us save the world.

We were also introduced to our art project where we used different materials to print. (Apologies about the tshirts, but they had so much fun!) In our new topic 'Oceans and Seas' we visited the continent Europe and worked out which countries and landmarks Teddy had visited. In Science 'animals and humans' we discovered animal groups and identified which animal fits the group.

Today Year 1 had their first balancability session which they had so much fun!

Well done Mars Class have an amazing weekend in the sunshine!