In Birch and Ash classes, the children were surprised to find a bear in their classroom when they came to school after the summer holidays. Bear was feeling lonely so wanted the children’s help to make new friends and their help to find the perfect home.

Over the coming weeks, the children followed bear on his adventures of meeting new friends along the way.

One of the first animals that bear (and the children) met were the three little pigs who were also looking for their perfect house. Through the use of imagineering the children imagined that they had met the three little pigs and that they were stuck in the mud so needed bear’s help. The children then attempted to write simple sentences about the pigs and the mud.

The children then came into school to find the bear had left muddy paw prints all around school. They had to follow the prints through school to discover what the bear had been up to. After exploring the courtyard area, the children discovered a nest, feather, books about owls and eggs. They looked at the clues and worked out that the bear had met an owl friend. They then applied their phonic knowledge to write down the clues that had been discovered.

The children then had an exciting visit from some real owls which led them to use the knowledge gained from the expert to write some facts about owls.

Another week, brought another friend that bear met. The children followed the footprints to the pond and found rabbit. Unfortunately, the rabbit had fallen into a pond so needed bear’s help. The children used this situation to think about safety around water and wrote stop signs that could be used to warn others. Some children also wrote recounts of what had happened at the pond by saying their sentence aloud, counting the words and listening to each sound.

More paw prints were then discovered. The children followed them to the field and found a new friend: fox. They used this adventure to the field to draw and label maps to show the route they took and clues they saw along the way.

Bear was still on his quest to find the perfect home so the children decided to tell the bear all about their homes to give him some ideas. They drew their houses and used their phonic knowledge to make attempts to label what they had drawn.

It was then time to choose a place for the bear to live now the children had learnt so much about him. They selected a picture of a place that they thought bear would like the best and wrote where this was, such as ‘cave’.