Teddy Bears Picnic activities

The Greenwich Pre-school Learning Alliance holds an annual Teddy Bears Picnic for under-fives and their families. The grounds behind the beautiful Charlton House were transformed into an enormous play arena of interactive games and imaginative activities designed to appeal to its early years visitors. An estimated four hundred children and adults came to enjoy a wide variety of free activities, all provided by early years childcare settings from around the Greenwich borough.

As well as the numerous hands-on play activities on offer, there were bouncy castles, organised races, parachute games, dancing, a sing-a-long with the Book Start Bear, fun road safety activities from the Greenwich school crossing patrol service, and lots of bears!

Charlton Family Centre supplied some great sensory boxes, each containing different types of toys; one for bugs, one for snakes and one for wild animals. They all had different textures and shapes and children loved the challenge of guessing what they could feel. There was also a play tent containing sensory toys for children to explore and a great painting-the-trees-with-water activity that proved a big hit – just buckets of water, big paintbrushes and a tree.