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Summer 2026
We have been developing our fine motor skills by using screwdrivers. This was quite tricky! We had to learn how to turn the screwdriver the correct way and in quite small spaces with very tiny screws! It was great fun and we have found we really enjoy taking items apart!
In P.E. we have spent the last few weeks playing kick rounders. It has been great fun to practice the rules of rounders but by using a ball that we can kick instead of the tricky rounders bats. This week we decided to develop the game and use a tennis racket. This used out tennis skills we have learnt and put them into a game situation. It was great fun and we had quite a lot fielders having to run quite a way across the field!
In phonics we are working so hard to spell words with lots of different phonemes for the same graphemes. Today we looked at the 'se' ending in words.
In geography we have been learning all about the four nations of the UK. This week we looked at Northern Ireland. We explored the city of Belfast, talking about the titanic museum and other famous landmarks and then looked closely at the Giants Causeway. We learnt about the geographical reason for the causeway to be formed due to volcanic rock cracking to create the pattern of the causeway stones and we also looked at the myth about Finn McCool and Benadooner the Giant from Scotland and how their adventures created the causeway and even made the Isle of Man! when exploring this topic we used blocks to build the causeway, we explored printing via hexagons to create a rock face effect and we retold the story of Finn McCool in our writing.
Continuing with our colour mixing theme by using the media of paint we used Lego block printing to explore the ways in which we could make different colours. The children are so confident now with knowing how to make secondary colours that our discussions are not focused on the shade of green, orange and purple that we can make. We had some great descriptive language for the colours we created, from lime and sea green to violet to burgundy.
We investigated trees in our beautiful outdoor area. We are so blessed with such a lovely big space at Cockshutt and we are surrounded by a variety of species of trees. We investigated the different trees by identifying leaves and later on looked into the diffrerences between evergreen and deciduous trees.
We looked at the artist Jasper Johns and his work based around impasto painting where thick paint is used in this case to create secondary colours from primary colours. The children used numbers, just like in John's work to layer the paint and create the secondary colours.
It is lovely to see the children's creativity when they are in provision and this wonderful group of friends worked together like a perfect team making a wonderful zoo small world model. They carefully selected the coloured materials to use for specific water and land areas and discussed in great detail the animals they chose, the habitats they each should live in and the size differences between parents and offspring. It was wonderful to see so much talk and creativity in play.
In phonics we have been working so hard to look at alternative spellings. Focusing upon alternative graphemes and split digraphs. We have been reading, writing and sorting words with all of the different graphemes in.
Today we explored colour in art. We learnt all about the primary colours and how we use these to make secondary colours. We had a wonderful time experimenting!
This week we have began our new science topic all about plants. We started off identifying plants around the school grounds and discussing all of the different types of plants we could find. We also took the time to celebrate earth day on Wednesday by making seed bombs and planting a wildflower garden.
