Going on a Bear Hunt & Sea Creatures!

Over the last couple of weeks, the toddlers have been loving the book of the month ‘We’re Going on a Bear Hunt’ and have been requesting to read it at any given chance. Most of the toddlers have been joining in with the repetitive phrases, Matilda shakes her head and says “Not scared”, while Jude and Jasper point their fingers and shout out “Go through it”, while Oliver smiles and sways his body to the different movements “Splash splosh”. The toddlers also got to have a teddy bear picnic where they brought in their own bear from home or used one from the soft toy basket. Cecilia and Amelie enjoyed sharing their sandwiches with their bears, Cecilia took one bite for herself then fed her elephant toy “He want my sandwiches too it’s yummy”.

In the garden the toddlers went on a bear hunt of their own, wading through swishy swashy grass, stumbling through a dark forest, splashing through a deep cold river and sneaking through a cave all to find the hidden bears. After the first clue of paw prints was spotted, it led to a stampede of toddlers running up to the bear and celebrating their find. As the initial excitement wore off the toddlers began really incorporating the story into their search for more bears. Kitty pretended to be walking through a cave as she crept through the path, walking on tip toes and reciting part of the book “Tip toe, tip toe, tip toe” followed by a dramatic gasp and “What’s that!”. Once the children had found all of the bears a couple of them sat down to have a look at the story again. After looking at the pictures, Margot and Jack turned to the last page in the book where the bear is walking back to the cave alone, Jack said “Bear sad” and Margot replied “Aww… bear sad. Want to give him a cuddle”. 

Over the last few weeks, the under twos have really enjoyed engaging in various messy and sensory activities. When making some star fish pictures, Amelie and Blair were giggling whilst saying, “Dab dab dab” as they put paint on their pictures. Harry looked up to Kelly when he was painting and pointed, saying “Star Kelly!”. Afterwards the messy fun, some of the children were copying Alex pretending to be a star fish by laying on the floor and wriggling their arms and legs about. Monty shouted, “Wow!” before running over and laying down moving his arms and legs like a star fish. Blair started to copy Monty shrieking with delight and excitement.

Out on the field there has been a lot of running around on the grass with lots of happy faces. The little ones were trying to catch the bubbles and were chasing the flying streamers. Arlo came running over to explore and reached his arms as high as he could to try and catch the streamer as Alex waved it through the air. Ava held the handle and gave the streamer a wiggle to make the colours move, giving a big smile of satisfaction. Gabriel then copied Ava, really laughing with enjoyment. Eva was running after the bubbles and lifting her feet up to try and pop the bubbles with her shoes. 

Out in the garden, there’s been lots of exploring the water tray to find what sea animals were hidden among the bubbles. Gabriel lifted up a seal shouting, “Wow” as he splashed it back down into the water. This splashed Harry and they both looked at each other for a moment before laughing along together and saying, “Oh no!”. Eva found a lobster and held it up showing how proud she was of what she had found before then moving the bubbles some more and then found a large sea shell. Harry looked “Ell, ell!” he shouted.