Our summer 2 whole school project 'There's Only One You' is completely led by the children's ideas and interests. We had an exciting assembly with Mrs Mason where she gave each class a body part as a starting point. Our body part was 'Hands'! For our final term in Year 1 we will be celebrating the unique skills and talents each one of us has and looking at ways we can make a positive difference in our community and the wider world.

We are focusing on the core text 'In Our Hands' by Lucy Farfort and through this we will explore how we can use our hands to look after each other and our world. 

We began this half term's English learning journey by looking at the beautiful poem These Hands by Hope Lynne Price. 

We used this as a stimulus to write our own poems about what our hands can do and how they can make a positive difference to the world around us. 

In Art this week we have been looking carefully at a piece of artwork called 'Two Arms and Two Hands' by the artist Vincent Van Gogh.

We talked about the different hands we could see and whom they might have belonged to. We noticed that the hands were different shapes and sizes with different lines and details. 

We looked closely at photographs of three very different hands (one belonged to Mrs Williams, one is a photo of her dad's hand and the third is a photo of Mrs Williams' little girl's hand) and carefully sketched the different details we could see. 

We have enjoyed another visit from local scientist Steven Lewis Neille. Throughout the session we learnt about different minibeasts and small animals and their natural habitats. We also learnt the different ways in which they are able to protect themselves from predators in the outdoor environment. 

Whilst continuing to explore different hands in Art we talked about the different skin tones we could see and used a range of media to practise creating the different tones. 

We then looked at inspirational people with hand differences including American chalk artist Rebecca LaFlure who draws amazing cartoons despite having lost all four fingers on her drawing hand. 

The children then worked collaboratively to create this beautiful artwork that celebrates the amazing diversity and uniqueness in our hands.

Our learning in Science follows on from our Spring 2 topic of 'Growth'. We will be looking at deciduous and evergreen trees, analysing their leaves and the key differences in their appearance.

We went on a tree hunt around our school grounds and looked closely at each tree's leaves to identify whether it was an evergreen or deciduous tree. 

In History we have been researching the life and achievements of British artist Alison Lapper MBE. 

In DT we followed a design brief to design, make and evaluate a garden picture with a moving gate.