Hamstel Infant School & Nursery Weekly News week ending 15th MARCH 2024

Dear Parents and Carers,

Thank you to all the parents and carers that came along to our parent/ teacher discussions, it was lovely to welcome you all to the school and to see lots of happy faces leaving, having heard how much progress your children have made. We are very proud of their achievements as I’m sure you are too. If you were unable to attend this week but would still like to talk to your child’s class teacher, please get in touch and we will arrange a suitable time for you to meet.

Today we celebrated Comic Relief with our ‘red’ themed dressing up day!! The hall was a mass of red for our celebration assembly and it was great to hear some jokes shared by the staff and children alike. Although I must be honest some jokes were so bad, not even I’d use them and I have some seriously bad dad jokes in my repertoire believe me!

The favourite joke of the day has to be….

What do you call an exploding monkey?

A baboom!!

Next week, we have a parent council meeting taking place on Wednesday, so if you have any views to share with us, please speak to your class parent councillor. It’s also not too late to get involved yourself, so if you would like to be a member of our Parent Council and would like to share your views about important school issues, please get in touch with the office.

Just to give you some advance warning, after the Easter Holidays we will be asking parents to send children into school with a clear, water bottle that can be refilled. We think this will work better than the cups currently used and will allow us to see how much water children are drinking during the day.

It never ceases to amaze me just how much we can fit into a week at Hamstel Infants and next week is no different. Over the last month, our Year 1 children have been busy rehearsing for their spring show which they will perform to parents in the last week of term. However, next Thursday, they get to show off all their hard work to the whole school when they will perform their dress reversal. Then on Friday, it’s our eagerly awaited Science Day, where each class will get to take part in an amazing, investigative science assembly with our visiting scientists. We can’t wait to see what happens!

I hope you have a great weekend and we will see you all again on Monday morning for another fun week at Hamstel Infant School and Nursery!

Best regards,

Scott Roche

Principal

Book Week Story Jar Competition

Here are the names of the winners for the Story Jar Competition we ran for Book Week. We had lots of entries, so a big thank you for everyone who took part. The winners all received a certificate and a book.

Squirrel - Sebastian

Hedgehog - Maggie

Fox - Madeleine

Otter - Kathryn

Newt - Harper

Dragonfly - Nabeeha

Duck - Sophia

Heron - Ivy

Woodpecker - Archie

Kingfisher - Ruby

Peacock - Lizzy

Owl - Clemintine

Seahorse - Oakley

Nursery

This week we have been reading the book ‘Billy and the Dragon’ we have continued talking about the beginning, middle and end of a story and answering questions to develop our understanding of stories.

In Maths we have been learning to order numbers 1-5

We have been looking at different materials and describing how they feel and what they look like, such as smooth, rough, soft shiny etc.

In outdoor learning we have been learning the names of different plants that we see in the wildlife area and around the school.

How to help at home

Watch the RWI Virtual Classroom videos with your child, encouraging them to join in with the Fred Talk.

REMINDER: Please ensure that your child always has spare clothes in their bag, especially underwear and trousers.

Can you return any clothes that have been borrowed from Nursery as our supplies are running low.

Rainbow & Starlight

Rainbow

Another busy week for Rainbow Room, as we continued learning about The Gruffalo and all his friends in the forest. The children looked at differences between animals, animals with legs, wings or no legs at all, we have looked at measurements, and made some lovely pictures using different types of media. The children have really enjoyed the bucket this week and have shown focus and anticipation. They have practiced zig zag monster letters and CVC words. The afternoons have been full of fine and gross motor skills and sensory play, exploring different textures and using our hands to build things.

The children enjoyed swimming as they become more confidence in the water, practicing different strokes and movements, such as making bubbles in the water, kicking legs and playing with water safely.

Starlight

We have continued our learning based around ‘The Gruffalo.’ The children have used colourful semantics to make sentences to match pictures from the story; they have become more confident and accurate as the week has progressed. We have continued practising our fine motor skills, using scissors to cut straight lines and using tweezers to pick up small items. The children have used playing cards, sorting the cards into suits and sorting them by number.

Thank you for continuing to support your child by attending the parents evening to discuss their progress.

Reception Year

This week we have been reading the book ‘Look Out, It’s a Dragon!’ In History we have been learning about who lived and worked in castles in the past. In Art we have been using the techniques that we have learnt about to make our clay monsters. In Outdoor learning, we have been identifying different minibeasts and their physical features by going on a minibeast hunt in the wildlife garden. In Maths we have been learning to count beyond 20, count objects accurately and order numbers from 1 to 10. In PE we have continued with our Dance unit, this week exploring contrasting movements linked to predators and prey.

How to help at home

Handwriting

Continue to practise the zig zag monster letters, remember to start and finish in the correct place

Maths

• Practise counting verbally beyond 20.
• Count a group of objects accurately, remember to start at 1
• Order numbers between 1 and 10

Year One

This week we have been continuing with the traditional tale of ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’. In our Literacy lessons we have been using our imagination to replace the golden hen with a new magical object, which has been lots of fun! We then went on to retell the story with our new ending.

In Maths we have been revisiting number stories using addition and subtraction. Alongside this we have been solving some word problems.

We have also enjoyed having our adults in to watch one of our Maths Mastery sessions this week!

In Art we have been doing an artist study on Eric Carle. We learned some facts about him and looked at some of the beautiful work he had created. We then got to do our own printing, exploring with various materials.

How to help at home

Continue to watch the RWI Virtual Classroom videos:

REMINDER: Next week Year 1 have Outdoor Learning. Please wear appropriate clothing and footwear.

Letters sent home this week

• Year 1 - Bunny Hop Disco - 14.03.2024

Year Two

This week in Year 2 the children have been using their imaginations and thinking about how they might trap a dragon. The children have come up with some creative ideas and have turned these ideas into a set of written instructions.

The children started the week by revisiting command sentences, as this is a key sentence type needed in instructions. In our classes we have also had to think about the sequence of our instructional writing by using time conjunctions to signal the steps needed, e.g. first, next, after that. Of course, after careful planning and rehearsing some ideas the children wrote some brilliant instructions on ‘How to Trap a Dragon’, which may come in very handy if you were ever to spot one lurking somewhere!

In Maths this week the children have continued to develop their knowledge and understanding of 2d shape. The children have been practicing using the correct language in full sentences to describe the properties of a 2d shape or explain how they know what shape it is e.g. I know it is a square because it has 4 vertices, 4 equal sides and more than one line of symmetry. The children have also continued to explore lines of symmetry this week and then moved on to exploring patterns using 2d shapes. Why not continue to explore the shapes you see at home and see if you can guess the shape someone is describing?

Letters sent home this week

• Year 2 - Royal Party Invitation - 14.03.2024

Celebration Assembly - Respect

This weeks value has been 'Respect', below are highlights from around the classes.

Online Safety

For children and young people, low-quality sleep can become a serious issue. It has been theorised that poor sleep can have a significant impact on children’s brain development, affecting them for the rest of their lives. A healthy – and consistent – sleeping pattern, therefore, is incredibly important for children and young people’s wellbeing.

With the stresses and distractions that can present themselves to youngsters, it can be tricky to ensure they’re in the best mindset to wind down in the evenings for the rejuvenating rest that they need. This can be the case when they are on digital devices before they go to sleep. The right approach, however, can give them a better chance of cultivating a healthy sleeping pattern. Our guide has some practical tips on helping them to achieve exactly that.

PTA

Easter Egg Design Competition