Burnley Road Academy Foundation Stage

This half term our topic was ‘Down on the farm’. The children have learnt all about farm animals, the names of baby animals, the role of the farmer, what grows on a farm and lots more. As well as learning all about farm animals we went on our school trip to ‘Hesketh Farm’. We had a great day at the farm, we got to have a tractor ride, feed the lambs, walk around the paddock, collect the eggs, stroke the guinea pigs and lots more. The children loved seeing all the animals and asking lots of questions about the animals. We painted all the different animals that you may find on a farm and then created a beautiful display of this in our classroom. We read lots of farm stories, some of our favourites were, ‘Farmer Duck, ‘What the Ladybird heard’ and ‘Farmyard Hullabaloo.’

We based our learning around a different book each week. 
Week 1 - Pete the cat stories - we joined in with the repeated refrains and the catchy songs for each of the books. We had a great time mixing different colours with the powder paints to paint our own shoes for Pete and painted our own Pete the cat with colourful buttons.
Week 2 - We're going on a bear hunt - we loved retelling this story and acting it out!
Week 3 - Handa's surprise - We looked at different countries in Africa and compared different envionments to where we live. We also tasted the fruit from the story!
Week 4 - Shark in the park! - These are some of our favourite stories. We made telescopes and shark pictures! 

We also celebrated Chinese new year - always one of our favourite weeks. 

Enjoy the photos :) 

We based our learning around a different book each week. 
Week 1 - Pete the cat stories - we joined in with the repeated refrains and the catchy songs for each of the books. We had a great time mixing different colours with the powder paints to paint our own shoes for Pete and painted our own Pete the cat with colourful buttons.
Week 2 - We're going on a bear hunt - we loved retelling this story and acting it out!
Week 3 - Handa's surprise - We looked at different countries in Africa and compared different envionments to where we live. We also tasted the fruit from the story!
Week 4 - Shark in the park! - These are some of our favourite stories. We made telescopes and shark pictures! 

We also celebrated Chinese new year - always one of our favourite weeks. 

Enjoy the photos :) 

Our favourite topic to get to know each other! We have had a great time settling in and learning our rules and routines. We have learnt about ourselves, our bodies, our features, our likes and dislikes and our families. We love exploring our provision inside and outside and we are making lots of friends. We have also learnt all about Autumn and the changes that occur during this time. Our favourite story is 'The leaf thief'.
We have enjoyed a visit from Dave at Skip2bit to practise our dance and skipping skills. We have also had Laura (pupil parent) in to teach us a fantastic dance based on animals in the jungle. 
Our forest school sessions have been fun and we love exploring our fantastic woodland areas. 
At the end of the half term we enjoyed celebrating Halloween and definitely had a spooctacular time!
Have a look at the pictures below of us playing, learning and growing together, at Burnley Road!

What a 'farmtastic' day we had! The children loved meeting all the animals and were so excited! Ian told them lots of information about them and how to care for them. Meg the sheepdog was a special favourite!
In the afternoon, the children took part in a carousel of 6 activities around the farm theme. They made sheep biscuits, collected eggs from the chicken coop, made their own chicken paper plates, 'milked' cows, took part in welly wanging and apple bobbing and hunted for vegetables on the grass. 
The children enjoyed eating their lunch outside like a picnic and finished the day with an ice cream treat from the ice cream van! 

Look at our wonderful under the sea display! We have loved learning about the layers of the ocean and lots of facts about the different sea creatures. We have read lots of fiction and non-fiction books and particularly enjoyed learning how to keep our oceans clean and safe by recycling and getting rid of our rubbish properly. 

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!?

The children made poppies to remember the fallen soldiers and held a minute silence. This beautiful animation sees war as experiences by animals in a WW1 battlefield and really helped with their understanding and empathy
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pv_ub7Be7oA