Class 1 | St. Mary's C of E Primary School

Last Day with our Year 5 Reading Buddies

Today, we enjoyed our final time together with our Reading Buddies. We made cards to say thank you for their support and encouragement as we have been learning to read, which is such a vital skill for our future.

Ocean Creature Watercolour

We found out some fascinating facts about some of the oceans most amazing creatures. In Art, we then created our own under water scenes using watercolours.

Under the Sea

As part of our topic of continents and oceans, we have been looking at animals that inhabit the sea. In Art, we created our own moving fish ready to eat macroalgae and microalgae living in the salt water.

Multi Skills Event

We had lots of fun at East Grinstead Sports Club today. We completed a variety of games to improve our balance, coordination and endurance skills. Thank you so much to the Year 5 Sports Crew for all your help.

Silly Sponsored Saunter

We made each other laugh and raised plenty of money for St Catherine's Hospice with our whole school Silly Sponsored Saunter. Class 1 looked hilarious with their clothes on back to front and inside out. Thank you so much for all those that so generously gave to such a worthy cause.

Spirited Arts

Combining our RE and Art curriculum, the school has entered a Spirited Arts Competition. Class 1 created a piece of Art that reflects our learning that the bible teaches use to protect our world. The children created delicate origami flowers and hands with bible quotes showing our responsibilities. Our work is being displayed this weekend at St Swithun's Church in East Grinstead, as part of their Festival of Arts.

Spellings for this week (30.06.23)

Below are the Class 1 spellings for this week which will be tested on Friday 7th July

There are now 3 levels of challenge for children to choose from:

Mild – 6 simple spellings (3 words that include the week’s chosen sound, 2 green words that can be spelt using phonics and 1 red word that does not follow a phonics pattern).

Spicy – 10 spellings (4 words that include the week’s chosen sound, 3 green words that can be spelt using phonics and 3 red words that do not follow a phonics pattern).

Hot – 10 more advanced spellings (4 words that include the week’s chosen sound, 3 green words that can be spelt using phonics and 3 red words that do not follow a phonics pattern).

Sunny

We had a new visitor to Class 1 this week. Sunny the Meerkat has travelled all the way from the Kalahari Desert in Africa. He wrote use postcard with questions on how we learn in school. We are going to find out more about Sunny and his adventures using a book called 'Meerkat Mail'. Here are the clues we had to follow to find him.

Jolf

Members of Jolf Club came to school to lead a session on learning Golf skills. We tried a number of exciting and challenging activities to help improve our hand eye coordination.

Bee Bots

In Maths, we programmed Bee Bots to practice our knowledge of positional and directional language including forwards, backwards, left, right, quarter turn, half term, three quarter turn and full turn.

How to say each of the Set 1, 2 and 3 Sounds

Below is a video that goes through all of the Read Write Inc sounds your child will be learning in Class 1 to assist their reading. It is very important that each of these sounds are learnt correctly.

Reading – sounding out and blending

If you are unfamiliar with the terms sounding out and blending, here is a video from Read Write Inc explaining how they are used for reading unfamiliar words.

For more information about Read Write Inc, you can visit the Ruth Miskin website:

https://www.ruthmiskin.com/en/

For more video tutorials, visit the Ruth Miskin Training YouTube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/c/RuthMiskinTrainingEdu/videos

British Wildlife Centre

We had a fantastic experience at the British Wildlife Centre and were incredibly fortunate to see so many beautiful animals up close. We learnt lots of amazing facts from our very knowledgeable keeper. What was your favourite animal? Thank you so much to all of our adult helpers for your support.

Djembe Drumming

We really enjoyed exploring rhythm and syncopation in our Djembe drumming workshop this week. We learnt they originate from Ghana in Africa and are made from mango tree and goat skin.

Performance Poetry

In English we have been poetry detectives, exploring the patterns that can be found in the words including rhyming and alliteration. We also performed poems using expression in our voices and actions to bring the words to life.

King Charles III Coronation Celebrations

We have been learning about the historical significance of King Charles III's Coronation, happening this weekend. We made our own royal crowns and celebrated with a party, which included delicious scones.

Skipping Workshop

We had a skipping coach visit to teach us lots of fun ways to skip, from beginner to advanced. It is a great way to exercise and have fun!

Art

This term, we have been looking at abstract artists. We studied the work of Piet Mondrian (1872-1944) and created our own art inspired by his use of straight lines and block colours.

Arrays

In Maths this week, we have been looking at arrays, which means making equal groups of numbers. We found that some numbers make lots of equal groups (18) and other numbers do not (7).

Changing Seasons

In Geography, we are studying the changing seasons. We are currently taking a photo of the tree in our Values Garden, every week, to see how it is changing. We can now see new shoots on the tree, which is very exciting!

Seaside Day

To finish off this terms topic of The Seaside we enjoyed a fun-filled Seaside Day. Ron led us in going back in time to British beaches in the past. We studied artifacts and souvenirs from a number of seaside towns, some going back over a hundred years. We were also fortunate to watch a traditional Punch and Judy show and then study Ron's collection of puppets to learn how they were made and how to perform with them.

Healthy Eating

We were very pleased to have Caroline from Phunky Foods back with us again to talk about the importance of a healthy breakfast. She taught us how to make an Overnight Oats cereal with a balance of good ingredients and delicious fruit.

Gymnastics

Over the last six weeks, coaches from Star-Tasitc Gymnastics have been teaching Class 1 a variety of balances, stretches, jumps and sequences. This week, the children put all their new skills to the test whilst using all of the school's gymnastics equipment, including wall bars, vaults and benches.

Mass

In Maths, we have been looking at the mass of objects. We investigated how many blocks each object weighed by balancing then on a scale and comparing which objects were heavier, lighter or the same as each other.

Red Nose Day

We are very grateful to St Mary's Sports Crew for leading an excellent sport session to raise awareness for Red Nose Day. It's great having fun and getting fit!

East Grinstead Trip

We really enjoyed exploring our town today. We loved the opportunity to visit St Swithun's Church, the Tudor buildings and War Memorial in the High Street and East Grinstead Museum. We spent the whole afternoon back at school discussing what we had seen. It is great finding out interesting facts about where you live!

World Book Day

Today, we celebrated World Book Day by dressing up as our favourite book characters. We also enjoyed discussing our favourite books with our Year 5 reading buddies. We love reading in Year 1 and take every opportunity to practice and develop our reading and comprehension skills.

Marble Run

This week at St Mary's has been Design and Technology week. We designed and made marble runs using cereal boxes and practiced drawing straight lines with a ruler.

Wellbeing Week

This week, we have been focusing on taking care of ourselves and celebrating who we are. We enjoyed a Kicks Dance Workshop and had fun expressing our favourite things in art.

The Snail and the Whale

In English, we have been reading The Snail and the Whale by Julia Donaldson and writing about settings and character's feelings. We took some of the rhyming lines from the book and created our own performance poem.

Origami

In Art, we have been learning how to create origami. We made animal heads to practice our new skills.

Number Bonds to 20

In Maths this week, we have been exploring all the combinations of numbers that add together to give us 20. We used tens frames and counters to complete bar models.

The Circus

The circus came to St Mary's today! We were taught lots of skills, including how to balance different objects. In a special assembly we saw juggling and magic!

Road Safety

With the help of Super Cat, we have been learning how to cross roads safely and what dangers we need to look out for. We must always stop, look, listen and think before we are ready to cross any road and walk holding an adult's hand, whilst still looking both ways for any dangers. We also acted out the safe places to cross a road.

Place Value - Tens and Ones

This week in Maths, we have been looking at how we can split two-digit numbers into Tens and Ones. For example 19 is 1 ten and 9 ones. We used cubes and straws to help with our understanding of place value.

Positive and Negative space

In Art, we have been experimenting with creating shapes with positive and negative space.

Performance Poetry

This week, we have been looking at poetry linked to our new topic of the seaside. We enjoyed showing our performance poems all about waves (with actions) to the class.

Happy Christmas

We have made it to the end of the Autumn term and it is now time to celebrate Christmas and the New Year. The Class 1 team are so proud of what all of the children have achieved this term and we are really looking forward to all the exciting things we will learn together in 2023. It is a privilege to teach your children and we are so grateful for your support.

Have a very Happy Christmas!

Cheeky the Elf

Today we said goodbye to Cheeky the Elf, as he made his way back to the North Pole to help Santa prepare for Christmas. We have loved having him in our class and look forward to seeing him again soon. We have added a few more photos of what Cheeky got up to in the last week of term.

Father Christmas

We had a surprise visit from Father Christmas who brought us lovely presents and candy canes.

Reindeer Rush

This week, Class 1 took part in the Reindeer Rush to raise money for St Catherine's Hospice. We really enjoyed all the activities designed to keep us fit. A huge thank you to the Year 6 Sports Crew for running the event in rather chilly weather.

Christmas Lunch

We shared a delicious Christmas lunch this week. Thank you to all of the adults that made it a truly wonderful experience.

Finding the Difference

In Maths, we have been finding the difference between two numbers by subtracting the smallest number from the largest number.

New Trim Trail

We were very excited to try our brand new Trim Trail today. It really tested our skills of balance and coordination.

Remembrance Day

This week, we have been learning about the importance of Remembrance Day. We found out about the significance of Poppies and made our own to remember all of those that have given their lives in service and those that currently serve to protect our country and fight for peace around the world.

Goldilocks and the Three Bears

We had a big shock in Class 1 this week! We came back from lunch on Wednesday to find that someone had been in our classroom without permission and used all of our things; even eating our fruit! See photographic evidence below! After investigation, we concluded that it had been Goldilocks! We are now studying the fairy tale of Goldilocks and the Three Bears and are learning it off by heart, so we can write our own version of the story.

Our Harvest Song

Here is our Harvest Festival Service Song entitled 'What Are You Growing?' We hope you enjoy watching it as much as we enjoyed performing it!

Phunky Foods - Healthy Eating

This week, Caroline from Phunky Foods came to talk to us about eating a healthy and balanced diet. She taught us how to make a delicious healthy pudding called Supercrunch. We explored each of the ingredients, cut our fruit correctly with a knife and portioned our pots right for us.

Below is a copy of the recipe for the children to recreate at home.

Supercrunch Recipe.pdf

Greater Than, Less Than and Equal To

This week in Maths, we have been comparing numbers by using the words and symbols greater than, less than and equal to.

The Wild Rumpus

In English, we have been looking at the story of 'Where The Wild Things Are' by writer and illustrator Maurice Sendak. We recreated the excitement of the wild rumpus in groups with musical instruments. It was fun...and it was loud!

Handy Art

We experimented with repeating natural patterns in Art, by drawing around our hands and then extending the lines to make an abstract picture.

Year 1 Key Objectives

Below are the Year 1 Key Objectives for Reading, Writing and Maths, that will be covered over the course of this year.

Reading Buddies

We were very excited to meet our new Year 5 Reading Buddies. We cannot wait for each Friday when we can share stories and practice our reading skills.

Number Bonds to 10

This week in Maths, we have been exploring all the number bonds to 10 using tens frames.

Read Write Inc - Reading at Home

Read Write Inc is the reading scheme we use at St Mary’s to teach your child how to read words and understand their meaning.

Your child will receive a new Read Write Inc Phonics book to read at home each Monday. Please make sure your child returns this book the following Monday.

This is how we would like you to use the Phonics book in your daily reading with your child.

Day 1 and 2

> Get your child to go through and decode each of the green and red words by sounding and blending.

> Get your child to read through the story while you point to each of the words in turn. The green and red words you have practiced will appear in the story.

> If your child struggle with a word, help them to sound it out and blend it.

Day 3 and 4

> Let your child read the story to you while they point to each word.

> You are now building fluency of reading the text which is very important. They should be sounding out less and becoming more confident with saying the words without decoding first.

Day 5 and 6

> Let your child read the story to you while they point to each word.

> Read the questions about the story to your child and discuss the answers together. This is building reading comprehension – an understanding of the meaning of the text.