Nous allons à la chasse à l'ours

Last Friday, I decided to base our session around the story "Nous allons à la chasse à l'ours" (we're going on a bear hunt).  With it being the school holidays and people being on holidays etc I decided that starting a new theme would be best left until term restarts in September so these final 3 summer sessions will each be stand alones based on a story and we will sing requests from the children.

We started as usual by singing our bonjour song but then we listened to the story whilst walking through our interactive bear hunt around the hall.  Sadly I didn't have chance to photograph all the stages of our bear hunt, it was too tricky whilst reading the story aloud but I will explain how I had set each part up.

First in the story comes "la prairie" (the meadow) with it's swishy swashy grass.  I cut long strips of green wrapping paper and attached them on to a net curtain pole with sticky tape.  I then attached the pole across the top of 2 chairs.  The children then had to go through the grass  "flou flou"

Second is "la rivière" (the river).  I placed a blue beach towel on the floor and filled a washing up bowl with water. The children had to remove their socks and shoes and paddle through the water "splich splach" - they all seemed up enjoy this one, they actually took their time and I managed to snap a pic or two!

Next up is "la boue" (the mud).  For this I used a brown towel and put some cushioning under it in places to make the footing less steady.  The children had to "plaf plouf" their way across.

The fourth obstacle they come to is "la fôret" (the forest).  I had collected a selection of large twigs from the garden and used playdoh to stand them up. I scattered the floor with leaves and the children crept through to the forest sounds "hou hou". Managed to snap a quick photo here too 

Next comes "la neige" (the snowstorm). My big girls helped me out here, they each stood on a chair and threw cotton wool balls down on us as we swirled and whirled our way through "cross crass".

Finally we had arrived at "une grotte" (a cave).  This was made from a table and chairs and a big brown blanket, hidden inside were several bears (each child had brought their bear along and my eldest had hidden them before we started).  Each child took turns to tiptoe in "petit petat" and discover their bear before we all ran back through the obstacles and back to our singing circle where a big spotty blanket was ready and waiting for us to hide under in our bed!

"Nous n'irons plus jamais à la chasse à l'ours!"

Well actually I think we all had so much fun we probably will go on a bear hunt again! :0)

For our craft activity we made our own bear hunt maps with all the different obstacles included so that we can remember our bear hunt.  Here they are:

If you go on your own bear hunt this week we hope you have fun!! 

If you would like to buy the French version of her book or borrow it from your library, the isbn numbers is: 978-2-211-05101-9/11.2011

The original story "we're going on a bear hunt" was written by Michael Rosen and the French version was translated by Claude Lauriot Prévost.

Happy singing and crafting! :0)