Hamstel Infant School & Nursery Weekly News week ending 7th June 2024

Dear Parents and Carers,

Welcome Back!

We hope you all had a wonderful half-term break despite the extremely variable weather, and are ready for the exciting activities we have planned for the upcoming weeks.

This week, our Reception children were thrilled to welcome our community police team to the school. The visit was a huge success, and the children enjoyed learning about the important work that the police do in our community with the police car (complete with sirens), proving a big hit! The team also did an assembly to the whole school. A big thank you to the officers for taking the time to come and visit us!

Next week, our Year 2 children will be heading to our local beach for their annual beach days. We are looking forward to a fun and educational experience by the sea. Please make sure your child comes prepared for the day as detailed in the letter.

Our Year 1 children (and staff) have been working very hard in preparation for the phonics screening checks taking place next week. We are very proud of their dedication and effort, and we wish them the best of luck!

Just a reminder that it’s a four-day week for the children next week as we have our INSET Day on Friday, 14th June so the school will be closed for staff training.

Our whole school Sports Day is just around the corner on Wednesday 19th June. We are excited for a day full of fun and activities. Please make sure you have read the letter that came out last half term and more details will follow next week.

Thank you for your continued support and have a great weekend.

Scott Roche

Principal

Nursery

Welcome back everyone. This term we are learning about Superheroes, this week we have been thinking about people who help us, the children enjoyed listening to ‘Dinosaur Police’. We have been very lucky to have a visit from the police. The children loved trying on the police uniform and sitting in a police car. We have continued to learn about rhyming words. In Maths we have been learning the names of 3D shapes and counting forwards and backwards to 10.

We have also been learning about summer about what the weather should be like and what we can see in the environment such as bees, butterflies, different flowers etc.

We have started to practice for our Sports day.

How to help at home

In RWI we have been learning the sounds f,e and l.

Click on the links below to practice at home

Fred Games

REMINDER:As the weather is getting warmer please ensure that you apply suncream before attending Nursery and provide a named hat for your child Thank you.

Could you please ensure that your child's cardigan or jumper has their name written in it as we have a lot in our lost property box with no names on.

Please ensure that your child has spare clothes at nursery, especially now that the weather is getting warmer as we will have water play in the garden.

Please could you return any Nursery spare clothes as our supply is getting very low thank you.

Rainbow & Starlight

Rainbow

This week the children have been listening to the story 'Supertato', they have been looking at the problem in the story, the different characters and how the problem was solved. The children enjoyed making some potato heads, making superhero carrots and broccoli. They have written some lovely speech bubbles, and have looked at the different feelings that the characters may feel.

We have continued with pencil control, letter writing and CVC word recognition and blending. The children have continued with additions and subtractions, subitise and lengths.

We had a great time in swimming, and the children are now exploring with more confidence. Outdoor Learning was all about seasons, so we collected some leaves and flowers, we talked about the different flowers and plants, the trees and the weather. It has been a very busy week for the children, and they have adapted well, settling right back into Rainbows routine.

Letter formation: Curly Caterpillar

CVC words: cat/cot/tap - got/dad/dog - sat/mat/rat - met/egg - fit/quit

Number work: subitise up to 6/ counting to 10 forwards and backwards/ number sequencing up to 20

Starlight

In Starlight this week, we read the story of Supertato. We really enjoyed the characters in this story, especially Supertato, who saves the vegetables from the Evil Pea!

We made our own Super Vegetables and gave them names.

We practised our cutting skills by cutting out pictures of vegetables and matched these with the names on labels.

We practised our handwriting daily and writing our name and some tricky words.

In Maths we used the Rekenrek to find different ways of making 5. We continued to practise how to write the numbers to 10.

We loved exploring and looking for small minibeasts in our Outdoor Learning session today. We are learning about the lifecycle of the butterfly and will continue this next week.

Reception Year

It has been great to see all the smiley faces enger to come to school after the May half-term. This week we have kick started our new theme Superhero’s with the book 'Supertato'. This week the children have enjoyed searching for missing Supertato, who has been kidnapped by Evil Pea! To try and help find him we have been writing wanted posters so everyone in school is on the lookout for him!

In PSHE we have been learning about what makes us unique and special, including our likes and dislikes. In PE we have started our new unit ‘attack v defence’ and we have been learning to understand why it is important to take turns when playing a game. In Maths we have been subitising numbers to 5 in a variety of forms, including dot patterns and dice frames, we have also been exploring one more and one fewer than each number.

In Science we have been learning about the different stages in a life cycle of a butterfly. We are also very excited to watch this in real life with our real caterpillar in class. In Art we have started to learn about the artist Megan Coyle and some of the collages she has created.

How to help at home

Reading

Listen to your child read at least 5 times a week and record this in their home school book. Also encourage your child to watch the RWinc virtual classroom videos and use their speedy sound books to learn the sounds they have been taught so far.

Handwriting

Maths

• Practise subitising different arrangements of objects.
• Can your child tell you one more than and one fewer than all numbers to 5?

Year One

How to help at home

Letters sent home this week

• Year 1 - Beach Visit - 05.06.2024

Year Two

A big welcome back to the year 2 children this week, they have come back ready for learning and their last part of the summer term with us. The children have started their new theme, Growing and Changing and have kick started the week learning all about the life cycle of a frog. The children have been using their retrieval skills to locate information from texts and collect facts to write their own explanation pieces of writing. They have thought carefully about their subject specific vocabulary linked to this topic and using conjunctions such as so, or because to explain what happens at the different stages of growth. They, as usual did a brilliant job with their writing, pulling all the different skills and knowledge together.

In Maths the children have been learning more about 3d shapes. The children have been developing their language to describe the properties of some common 3d shapes such as faces, sides, straight edges, curved edges. They have enjoyed exploring the shapes by using nets of 3d shapes to help understand their properties.

In Science the children have been learning about the growth cycle of the human. Discussing how humans grow and what humans can do at the different stages from baby, toddler, child, teenager and adult. The children sequenced the stages and then wrote about what you can do at the different stages e.g. Toddlers learn how to feed themselves.

In Computing the children have started learning about creating simple sequences to program ‘a sprite’ using the program ‘Scratch’. This week the children learnt about the importance of having a sequence of commands and what would happen if those steps were not in the correct sequence.

Letters sent home this week

• Year 2 - PSHE/RSE Lesson - 04.06.2024
• Year 2 - Lesson Plans - 04.06.2024

Celebration Assembly - Enthusiasm & Determination

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

Online Safety

On the internet or on social media, it’s likely that you’ve come across the occasional pop-up – promising a great deal on some product or service, declaring that you’ve won some kind of prize, or making any other number of tempting claims. This marketing tactic has been around for almost 30 years and shows no signs of disappearing any time soon.

Unfortunately, pop-up advertising carries with it various online safety risks, as we can never be certain where those links will take us or how legitimate their creators are. These ads can be especially risky for children and young people, who may not yet be able to look at such marketing with a critical eye. However, our free online safety guide will educate you on pop-ups, their associated risks, and how to safeguard yourself and young people from this phenomenon.

PTA

Friends of Hamstel Schools are requesting donations of teddies for a teddy tombola at the Summer Fair. Donations can be brought in via classroom doors or the office for us to pass on to the PTA.

Summer Fair

Friends of Hamstel Schools are busy planning a Summer Fair on Thursday 11th July 3-5pm.

They are also looking for willing volunteers to help with the planned Summer Fair.