What a truly fantastic day it has been! We’re still buzzing with excitement after celebrating World Book Day on Friday 6th March 2026. The day was bursting with creativity, imagination, and a shared love of reading, as we explored the wonderful world of books – including a ‘beary’ special story linked to an incredible charity.
Adding to the magic, the Friends Association generously gifted every child their very own pair of bear ears, helping everyone feel fully immersed in the experience. We are so grateful for their thoughtful contribution, which helped make the day extra special and inclusive for all of our children.
We have loved seeing the children’s passion, creativity, and skills shine throughout all of the activities. It has been wonderful to watch their enthusiasm as they explored the story in so many different ways.
A huge thank you to our parents for your kindness and generosity in supporting the Ellenor Charity through your donations. Your support is truly appreciated and is helping us make a real difference to the families who rely on this important charity. We are incredibly proud to be part of this community!
In Nursery, our Little Birds have had a wonderful time exploring stories, creativity, and movement this World Book Day. The children really enjoyed icing biscuits and decorating them with gummy bears. This fun activity allowed them to explore their creativity while also developing their fine motor skills as they spread icing and carefully placed their decorations. We also brought our story to life by acting out the bear hunt outdoors.
The children loved moving through the different parts of the story together. They were also able to explore the story using small world resources in sensory trays, which encouraged imaginative play and supported their creativity as they retold the adventure in their own way. Music was used during the session to support the children’s movement skills as we re-enacted parts of the story.
The children had great fun moving their bodies in different ways to match the actions and rhythm of the story. In the book area, the children spent time sharing the storybook both independently and with their friends. Looking at books together helps to build confidence, encourages communication, and supports the development of early literacy skills. It has been lovely to see the children so engaged in storytelling, creativity and shared play.
In Reception, our young adventurers set off on an exciting journey inspired by our story, taking part in their very own sensory bear hunt walk. Using their senses, the children explored the world around them, listening carefully to the sounds they could hear and noticing what they could feel along the way.
Back in the classroom, they unleashed their creativity by designing and making their own bear masks from a range of materials, ready to wear on their hunt. Developing their early geography skills, the children then used simple map-making techniques to create their own routes leading to the bear cave.
To complete their adventure, they demonstrated their fantastic communication skills by retelling and reading the story using Makaton, bringing the tale to life through signs and actions.
In Year 1, they had a wonderful time making cute bear chocolate biscuits, carefully decorating them and showing their creativity. The children also created collages of different settings from the story using creative arts skills. The children used their communicator skills and talked about what was happening in their scene, helping to develop their imagination, descriptive language and understanding of the story.
In PE, the children moved their bodies to the music from ‘We’re Going on a Bear Hunt’, working together to create a dance inspired by the adventure. This helped develop their movement, coordination, and confidence while bringing the story to life in a fun and active way.
In Year 2, the children stepped into the role of talented seamstresses and seamsters, carefully stitching together their very own bear puppets. Armed with needles, thread, and plenty of determination, they showed incredible resilience. Sewing was a brand-new skill for many of them, but that didn’t stop them! They embraced the challenge wholeheartedly, proving themselves to be true risk-takers.Then, the children brought stories to life by designing their own comic strip versions, combining their artistic flair with their growing writing skills.
It was wonderful to see their imaginations run wild as they retold the tale in their own unique ways, adding colourful illustrations. To end our exciting day, we transformed our classroom into a real-life bear cave using tables and blankets – the children absolutely loved immersing themselves in the cosy space! Inspired by the experience, they then worked collaboratively in groups to design and build their own 3D caves using a variety of materials and their creations truly came to life.
In Year 3, the children enjoyed a very exciting virtual session where we joined author David O’Connell, who showed us how to draw some of the characters from his Beastie Bros books. The children loved following along and developing their drawing skills while learning from a real author and illustrator. Later, we used drama to explore how the bear might have felt in the story We’re Going on a Bear Hunt. Mr Foulds had everyone laughing with his hilarious ideas and the children had great fun sharing their own thoughts.
Together, we reimagined the story from the bear’s perspective, encouraging the children to think creatively and develop their storytelling skills. In the afternoon, the children went on their own exploration around the school grounds to discover different textures. They created rubbings using these textures and used them to design their own maps of the bear hunt, linking their outdoor learning with creativity and the story we have been exploring.
In Year 4, the children have been bringing ‘We’re Going on a Bear Hunt’ to life through music, art, and performance. The children worked together to adapt the story into a rap inspired by the style of the ‘Gruffalo’ rap. They were split into groups and each group was given a different section of the story to transform into lyrics that fit with a background rap beat working on their teamwork, spoken language and oracy skills.
To support their performances, the children also created digital artwork representing the setting for each scene in the story. Finally, the class performed their rap with their backgrounds displayed behind them, combining music, storytelling and creativity to produce a fantastic whole-class performance bringing their incredible performances to life.
In Year 5, the children explored storytelling and digital creativity by writing their own variation of the Bear Hunt story together as a class. The children then brought their ideas to life by creating a stop-motion movie based on their new version of the story. They carefully planned each scene, moved their characters frame by frame and even created their own sound effects to accompany the action, developing their teamwork, creativity and digital skills.
In Year 6, the children have been developing their creativity across writing, art, and physical activities. The children wrote their own suspense or comedy versions of the Bear Hunt story and recorded them as podcasts, allowing them to experiment with storytelling, expression, and voice.
They also designed and illustrated their own book covers to accompany their stories. In PE, the children took part in activities linked to the theme, including Bear Tag, a Team Bridge Challenge, and an Orienteering Bear Hunt, which encouraged teamwork, problem solving and physical activity. The class also helped to construct a ‘Mummy’ bear to accompany our small bear, adding another creative element to their learning.
