Messy Play - We're Going on a Bear Hunt

We're Going on a Bear Hunt - Sensory Story 

For our group project we decided to focus on the messy play area within a nursery. Within the settings we all work in we spend a lot of time doing messy play activities, not only do the children love these activities so do we. Children spend a lot of time reading and using the role play areas within settings, our sensory story involved these with messy play too. A sensory story enables children to actively walk through the story We're Going on a Bear Hunt whilst experiencing many different textures and objects associated with the story. 

This activity is not heavily adult led as children can spend as much time as they want to exploring the different activity boxes associated with each part of the story. Each activity box represents a different part of the story like grass, and snow storm the boxes are full of different textures and objects. In some of the boxes there is the opportunity for letters, numbers, shapes and understanding different measures or volumes to be added to enrich the experience even more than exploring textures. 

To create the sensory story we:

Used water that we dyed blue in order to enrich the learning experience so children could then be introduced to colours, if we were to adapt our activity for older children we would add numbers to the water and ask questions such as… find me number one?

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We created mud trays that would allow the children to physically stand in the mud as well as using their hands and playing with the mud, objects could be placed in the mud for the children to find for example letters. 

To create a forest we collected lots of different materials from an outdoor area (twigs, leaves, mud and grass)

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     A snow storm can be designed by using cotton wool balls (light and fluffy like snow) and also by having trays of shaving foam. 

t   Creating the bear's cave a den style area that is dark and undercover. This could be done by using chairs and a sheet lying over the top of them, torches or small lights could be added so that the children feel like they are exploring the cave. Leave the children to explore the cave area on their own. Objects can be placed in the cave that children can discover like rocks, faux fur and a bear. 

       





Documentation of this activity is easy, throughout the activity pictures can be taken of the children. The pictures can then be placed within children's learning stories and linked to areas of the children's development, this will allow children, parents and practitioners can review previous activities and see what the children have been up too. Also displays can be made throughout the nursery to give the children a sense of achievement and pride in their work. 

If we were going to do this activity again we would set it up in an outdoor environment to allow it be on a much bigger scale, allowing the children to stomp in the mud and walk through an actual woodland area.