Hamstel Infant School & Nursery Weekly News week ending 17th MAY 2024

Dear Parents and Carers,

Wow…What a week!

This past week, we celebrated Mental Health Awareness Week with a variety of engaging and educational activities.

Children and Staff showed their support by wearing green on Thursday, the colour associated with mental health awareness and everybody participated in a fun and energising movement activity, promoting physical health as a key component of overall mental well-being.

We are thrilled to announce that we raised £750 for the Mental Health Foundation, an amazing charity dedicated to mental health support. Thank you to everyone who contributed!

Throughout the week, we emphasised the importance of mental health with a special focus on anti-bullying. We shared our child-friendly anti-bullying poster, which highlights how to recognise and address bullying behaviour and every child took home our anti-bullying leaflet packed with useful information about mental health and anti-bullying strategies.

A big thank you to Miss Golding for organising the week and thank you to everybody involved for making this week a success and for supporting our ongoing efforts to promote mental health awareness.

Thank you to the Squirrel and Otter Class parents who joined us for our outdoor learning sessions this week. Despite the rain, your presence and participation made the event memorable for the children and we hope you enjoyed taking part. Apologies to Fox and Hedgehog Class parents whose sessions had to be postponed due to the wet weather. We appreciate your understanding and flexibility and hope that the weather doesn’t hamper our rearranged timings for next week.

Team Hamstel have been in action again today, participating in the QuadKids sporting event. QuadKids is a popular athletic competition designed for children, featuring a variety of activities that test their speed, agility, and endurance. This event provides an excellent opportunity for our young athletes to showcase their skills in a fun and supportive environment and it’s great to see our school engaging in so many of these events, promoting physical activity and team spirit among the children. The team have just returned and we have heard the amazing new that they have come FIRST!! Well done Team Hamstel.

We have an exciting week ahead filled with enriching activities for our children and lots more chances for parents to come and join in the fun!

On Tuesday, it’s a day dedicated to music and rhythm where all children will participate in fun musical activities as part of our whole school ‘Boom Whacker Day’.

Wednesday and Thursday are very busy days, with our Year 1 children getting the chance to visit the local church, providing a wonderful opportunity to learn about its history and community role, while our Year 2 (Fox and Hedgehog) parents are invited back into the wildlife area to join their children for an engaging outdoor learning experience.

On Thursday again, Reception parents are invited to join their children for a creative and hands-on sewing workshop in the hall.

We look forward to your participation in these events and I hope you have a lovely weekend.

Scott Roche

Principal

Nursery

This week we have been learning about animals that live under the water, the children have enjoyed listening to the book ‘Hooray for fish’. They have enjoyed creating their own fish and having flappy fish races.

We have also been sorting animals into their different habitats.

In Maths we have been learning to order numerals to 7 and exploring different patterns.

We have been thinking about keeping safe in the sun and learning about rhyming words.

In RWI we have been learning the sound c, k and o please click on the links below to practise at home

Fred Games

Outdoor Learning - Friday 24th May

As the weather is now getting warmer could you please apply suncream before Nursery, ideally an 8-hour protection as the children are now spending a lot of time in the garden.

Please provide your child with a sun hat and spare clothes.

If you have borrowed any Nursery clothes could you please return them as our stocks are running very low. Thank you

Letters sent home this week

• Nursery - Southchurch Library Visit Update - 16.05.2024
• Whole School - SEND Coffee Morning - 10.05.2024

Rainbow & Starlight

Rainbow

In Rainbow Room this week the children have been reading and listening to the story 'Dear Zoo', they have thoroughly enjoyed learning about the different animals. The children made some lovely zebras using string and we made a fierce lion as a group which was lots of fun, glue and sticky fingers.

The children have been looking at shapes and sizes, and how to use these terms when describing. We have been looking at simple additions up to 10, using different items as counters. We have enjoyed playing in the garden with coloured hoops and bean bags, practicing our listening skills. The children have continued with the letter families this week, number recognition and writing, name writing and cvc writing. The children have tried to understand some of the emotions that we may have, such as being sad, happy or angry. We are using the zones of regulation to help the children to associate the feelings and emotions with a colour.

The children have been working on......

1. Letter Families: Ladder and curly letter family
2. Simple additions up to 10
3. Number recognition up to 20
4. Letter and number formations
5. Prepositions
6. Words used this week:
7. Big, heavy, tall, fierce, grumpy, scary, perfect
8. RWi (according to Childs ability)
9. Zones of Regulation

REMINDER: Please let me know if anyone would like some resources to support their child's continued learning at home.

Starlight

This week we have been reading the book ‘Dear Zoo.’ The children have been joining in with the story language, naming the animals and some of their features. We have made snake collages and painted stripes on zebras.

In Maths we have practiced forwards and backwards to 10. The children have enjoyed finding the missing number on a washing line number line.

In P.E. we have been exploring different ways to travel: forwards, backwards, sideways and moving at different speeds.

How to help at home:

Handwriting:

• Practise number formation 0-4

Maths:

• Identifying numbers on a number line.

Reception Year

This week we have continued to learn about hot climate countries and animals that live in hot climate countries. In Science we have learnt the physical features of animals that live in hot climates and in Geography we have been learning about the physical features of these countries. In English we have been writing sentences about these animals.

In PSHE we have been learning how to keep out teeth healthy, thinking about the food that we eat and how to clean our teeth effectively.

In Maths we have been counting backwards, order towers of cubes and looking at number tracks.

In DT we have been designing our fish that we are going to sew and decorate next week at our sewing workshop.

How to help at home

Handwriting

Practise capital letters for the long-legged giraffe letters:

Maths

Say a number and point to it on the number line

Letters sent home this week

• Whole School - SEND Coffee Morning - 10.05.2024

Year One

This week in literacy we have been continuing with our work on non-fiction texts. We looked at different pieces of research and wrote down facts about the seaside. We used the notes we had taken to write our own reports about the things you can see and do at the seaside and shared these with the rest of the class.

In Maths we have been continuing with numbers to 100 and consolidating our understanding of the value of a digit in a number. We looked at the terms ‘greater than’ and ‘smaller than’ and ordered numbers correctly. We have also looked at number patterns and have been practising counting in 2s, 5s and 10s.

In Design and Technology, we made pictograms of the favourite fruits and vegetables of the class. We used this information to do some taste testing. We got to try banana’s, strawberries, melon, mango, peppers and cucumber.

Next week we are going to make fruit kebabs and write instructions on how to make them.

How to help at home

Letters sent home this week

• Whole School - SEND Coffee Morning - 10.05.2024

Year Two

This week in Literacy the children have been continuing to deepen their knowledge in the story of 'Sleeping Beauty'. They have been de-constructing the story and thinking about the structure and the story language. Using this knowledge they have written a re-telling of the fairy tale. The children worked incredibly hard at using story language to signal events and adding exciting vocabulary.

In Maths the children have been revisiting multiplication and division. They have been further embedding their knowledge and skills of the 2x, 10x and 5x tables to understand commutative law and the links between multiplication and division. The children have demonstrated their understanding of these concepts through a variety of problem-solving tasks.

The weather has been very temperamental this week with such a mixture of heavy rain and sunshine intervals, so thank you to those classes who had their sessions postponed for joining the children in their Outdoor Learning lessons. We hope that Otter and Squirrel parents and carers enjoyed their outdoor learning experience this week and Fox and Hedgehog enjoy the opportunity next week.

Classes have continued to enjoy their Artist study of Edward Tingatinga, exploring some African Art. The children have been busy creating their own art pieces this week using paint to create their own artwork inspired by Edward Tingatinga.

Reminders: Wednesday 22nd May – Hedgehog parents are invited to join our Outdoor Learning session 2pm – 3pm. Thursday 23rd May – Fox parents are invited to join Outdoor Learning session 2pm - 3pm.

Please enter via Poyning’s Gate and you will be met and taken to meet the class in the Outdoor Learning Area. Make every effort to be on time as late entry may not be possible.

Letters sent home this week

• Whole School - SEND Coffee Morning - 10.05.2024

Celebration Assembly - Effort & Resilience

This weeks value has been 'Effort & Resilience', below are highlights from around the classes.

Online Safety