If you go down to the woods today you're sure of a big surprise,
If you go down to the woods today you'd better go in disguise,
For every bear that ever there was,
Will gather there for certain because,
Today's the day the teddy bears have their picnic.
Today we had a little teddy bear's picnic in the living room, inspired by my friend
Vicky. Boris was sleeping when I set up the picnic. I put down a plastic mat (in anticipation of spills) with a blanket over the top, and laid it with Boris' toy tea set and several teddies. I boiled the kettle and made tea (cooled down with cold water) in his tea pot, filled the jug with some watered down almond milk and put a bit of sugar in the sugar pot. I put on a CD with the Teddy Bear's Picnic song on it then woke him up with a whispered "something is happening in the living room!"
He was very excited to see the picnic set up on the living room floor, although we have pretended to make and drink tea with his tea set before he wasn't sure what to do so I made a cup of tea then he had a go pouring the tea from the tea pot through the strainer, adding milk and stirring in sugar. Of course being a toddler he didn't make tea the "proper" way, he poured tea into the milk jug, poured all the milk into one cup, poured all the sugar into one tea cup, poured the tea from the tea pot via the top rather than the spout and slopped all the tea leaves from the strainer onto the rug. But he seemed to enjoy it and liked making sure that all the teddies had some tea, I certainly enjoyed the magical feeling of it all and the pleasure on Boris' face.
This was a useful activity for improving Boris' fine motor skills. When he is a bit older this will be a great activity for learning about turn taking, sharing and table manners.
Have you ever had a teddy bears picnic with your toddler? I will definitely be doing this again in future, maybe in the garden next time and maybe with food.
Our tea set is this one from Amazon
