Burnley Road Academy Foundation Stage

Autumn 1!
This half term is always busy! We are settling in well and learning all the rules and routines of our wonderful classroom. The children are practising lots of skills such as listening, tidying up, sharing and turn-taking. 
Our topic is 'I am special, I am me!'
We have painted self-portraits, looking carefully at what makes us unique such as our eye colour and hair colour. We have also made some lovely family pictures and enjoyed talking with our friends about who is in our family. 
We are also learning all about autumn and the changes that occur during this season. We are enjoying collecting yellow, brown, red and orange leaves and finding conkers and acorns. We are learning about what some of the animals do in the autumn such as squirrels, hedgehogs and geese. We are reading autumn stories and learning some lovely autumn songs. Take a look at our lovely autumn displays in the pictures.  

This topic was definitely a favourite! We looked at all things adventure and fantasy and had lots of fun letting our our imaginations run wild!
Our focuses were magic (wizards and witches), turrets and tiaras (kinghts, dragons, princes and princesses), superheroes, and aliens and monsters!
We have also had a brilliant trip to the fire station in Mytholmroyd. We had a tour of the station and the fire engine and we looked at their uniform and the different equipment they use. We even got chance to have a go at using the hose pipe! 

We have absolutely loved our topic 'Down on the farm'. We learnt about farm animals including their characteristics, their different names, what they like to eat, their young and the produce we can get from them such as eggs, milk and wool. We have looked at the job of a farmer and the vehichles and equipment they use. They have so much to do and work very hard! We created some fabulous art work which is on display in our classroom and we learnt some new songs. We have also looked at life cycles and been very lucky to have our own chick eggs, caterpillars and frog spwan. We have planted our own beans to take home and care for and planted sunflowers during forest school. Have a look at a few photos from all the fun below! 

We are very excited about our topic this half term. We started by having a talk about all the different types of people we know who help us. We had some great ideas such as police, shop assisstants, our parents, teachers, doctors, bus drivers and dinner ladies. We have thoroughly enjoyed learning about fire fighters, doctors, nurses, paramedics, midwives, dentists and police so far and have been lucky enough to have some fabulous visitors to tell us all about their jobs and how they help people. 
We had a fantastic week celebrating Chinese New Year and the year of the tiger. We now know all about how it is celebrated! We have made lanterns, had a go at Chinese writing, made tigers, role played in our Chinese restaurant, tasted Chinese food and learnt and retold the story of the Zodiac. 

We have introduced fine motor Monday and Friday to our timetable. We provide the children with exciting, well-planned  activities to develop their fine motor strength and pencil grip to prepare them for writing. 

Just when you thought one would never come along...
The children thoroughly enjoyed this story and the naughty bus even paid us a visit! We took the bus on lots of adventures, drew maps, role played, retold the story and even created our own buses at the modelling area. 

On Friday 12th November we celebrated Maths Week! Our children made a fantastic effort dressing up as something Maths related and engaged in lots of Maths based activities. We are huge fans of the Numberblocks, do you think we could pass as them!?

This half term it's all about the children settling in and adapting to the routines and class rules. We will be focusing on independence skills and developing confidence. We will spend time talking about ourselves and how we are all different to each other. We will also talk about our families, our interests and our likes and dislikes.

Our final topic of the school year! We will be taking a closer look at our environment, exploring living things, looking at life cycles, learning new facts, looking at growth and decay and how to care for plants. Of course we will be getting up close and personal with minibeasts too! The children will be planting their own seeds and will help to look after our outdoor area. They will be introduced to new vocabulary and books, including fiction and non-fiction. We have already planted sunflower seeds and we love caring for them and checking for any changes! 

Prepare for lots of stories with this opener! 
The children will be focusing mainly on traditional tales such as The gingerbread man, The three little Pigs, Goldilocks and the three bears etc. They will look at how these stories are structured, the characters, settings and plot. They will be able to join in with repeated parts of the story and retell the stories using puppets and story maps/mountains. 

Reception:
Phonics - Children in Reception have been taught all of the phase 3 sounds. This term we will be practising using these sounds to read and write. The children will begin to be able to write sentences which are phonetically decodable. We will be focusing on letter formation to make sure that their letters are formed correctly. We will be looking at the phase 4 part of Letters and Sounds document where we begin to look at longer words using all the sounds they have been taught.

Maths  -This term we will be really focusing on recognising, writing and ordering numbers from 1-20. We will be looking at numbers to 100 also. We will continue to learn the names of 2D and 3D shapes and the properties of these shapes. The children have learnt how to add by counting on and we will be looking at this again by using bigger numbers. We will also look at subtracting numbers in practical and fun ways.

This half term we are diving into the depths of the ocean and learning about all things under the sea! We will explore the different layers of the ocean and learn facts about various sea creatures. (Check out our wonderful display >!) We will also spend lots of time learning the importance of recycling and caring for our environment and wildlife. We recommend the story 'Somebody swallowed Stanley' by Sarah Roberts.  The children will be learning lots of new vocabulary surrounding this topic and we hope they will share it with you too! 

Nursery children are working really hard during Phonics sessions. We are focusing on alliteration and initial sounds through lots of exciting games and activities. We are also continuing to practise their super listening skills during carpet sessions and remembering to put their hand up. The children will also be developing their counting skills by matching numeral and quantity, counting out a given number and working with 2D shapes. 

We are welcoming majority of the Reception children back into the classroom who have been working incredibly hard at home. We have learnt all of the Phase 3 sounds and now we are going to continue to practice using those sounds in words to read and for writing. There are lots of games and activities that you can use to practice this. There are some good websites that you can explore to develop their phonic skills. www.phonicsplay.co.uk , www.lettersandsounds.co.uk , www.twinkl.co.uk. In Maths we are continuing to learn a range of skills such as doubling, counting on, measuring, time, money and problem solving. 

Welcome all our September starters to Burnley Road Foundation Stage Unit! Let the adventures begin!

Mrs Holmes, Miss Brennan, Mrs Greenwood, Mrs Geoghegan and Ms Harrison are thrilled to have you all in our unit.

The children are settling in very well adapting to the routines and class rules. During this half term, we are focusing on independence skills and developing confidence. We will spend time talking about ourselves and how we are all different to each other. We will also talk about our families, our interests and our likes and dislikes.

The children made some lovely pictures of their families which are on display. Take a look > 

This is one of our favourite topics! This half term we will look at a globe and explore different parts of our wonderful world! We will begin with England and then move onto hot, dry, cold and wet climates e.g. deserts, rainforests and Arctic/Antarctica. During this topic we will look at similarities and differences in weather, homes, animals and much more!

Our wonderful Rainforest display is below!

NURSERY PARENTS - Follow this link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDtyjM8gsU4&feature=youtu.be to see Miss Brennan go through one of the ways we teach aspects of phase 1 Phonics (rhyming, alliteration and oral blending and segmenting) through a game called silly soup. The children are very familiar with this game and they know the song so it should be an easy one to play with them...fingers crossed!
Please make sure you are pronouncing the pure sounds - here is a guide https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTe5_Em0BHQ

Check out some of the other videos on her channel to hear her reading stories and singing songs!

RECEPTION PARENTS - Follow this link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5U7R3wpSs6o&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR19WbhxzC1XBANcYh-VqOxcutqmLHnfOOQ3dwHjdMPRDF599WzLXkHtSeY to see Mrs Holmes reading lots of lovely stories!

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