Un - Bear- lievable

A mysterious visitor appeared on our corridor earlier this month. He stood by the door to our outside area with a rope slung across his shoulders and mud on his face. He caused much intrigue and the children were guessing who he might be and how he came be at Lister school. His appearance made some of the children think that he might have been on lots of adventures before he got here. After some careful scrutiny every morning, Mateo announced that he knew who our visitor was. ''It's Bear Grylls, I've seen him on the telly he eats disgusting things and jumps out of helicopters.''

Mateo was right, my friend Bear had been watching the children playing outside and had been looking to see if they had the skills it took to survive in the wild. At the beginning of the month I was not in class for three days, I had received a phone call from Bear to join him on one of his adventures. He needed me to be his camerawoman and learn skills from him to take back to the foxes and otters.

When I arrived back in Herford (in one piece...just!) I had all of our video footage with me. Bear had taken me on all of his most exciting survival missions. We had jumped out of helicopters, abseiled down waterfalls and made our own shelter. The children were excited to watch the footage and keen to see just what this Bear Grylls could do. After all, we had been trying to work out who he was for the past few days!

The children were mesmerised and were soon chanting Bear like mantras to each other before setting off in their independent play. ''Positivity, Positivity, Positivity'' and ''Just get out there!!'' were heard all along the corridor. These mantras became posters, and these posters were soon stuck up on any available wall space...some of the children decided it would be best to place them in the office...''so more people can come on our adventures.''

It seemed that they were recruiting suitable survivors for Bear Grylls. Teamwork, positivity, dedication and perseverance were qualities that the children had picked out from all of Bear's videos and they were soon praising each other for displaying these in their play. Ruth, Iris, Faye and Jack enjoyed playing out scenarios in our very own mission survive camp, they were toasting pretend marshmallows just like Mr Gill had taught them to do in Forest School.

The clip of Bear jumping out of the helicopter (with me steadfastly filming him!!) sparked Lucas's imagination in particular. Using his creativity and resourcefulness he made his very own hang glider ''So I can fly down to see if any of the other mountains have plants I can eat.''

Using her Bear Grylls mini-me Chloe created a mini parachute for him and used him in her small world play. The small world area (soon to be renamed 'Our Bear Grylls Play Set' and expertly labelled by Reese) was all designed and created by the children.

Our recent work on looking at speech bubbles came into its own when the photographs we had printed of Bear, the children and members of staff were independently cut up and arranged into amusing scenarios. The added speech bubbles gave way for some funny and imaginative games at the 'Bear Grylls Play Set' and outside. Have a look at some of them. They are displayed in both Otters and Foxes class...come and have a look at them properly when you are next in school.

This one is made from large photos of Bear Grylls and Mrs Gill and is stuck onto our large blackboard. Mrs Gill looks very surprised to see Bear in our corridor! The children have had lots of fun adding to these photographs and many more by chalking a background to accompany them. They have added palm trees, mountains, crocodiles and sandy beaches.

This one made Mr Gill smile. When asked, Cameron said that in this collage it is Bear Grylls talking to Mr Gill and not the other way round. ''Hey boss, what shall we do today?''

In this one it is Bear Grylls who needs saving...I think with our new found survival skills and ''bags full of positivity'' we could get him off that icy mountain, don't you?

And finally...It seems it is essential that on every survival mission you take a cheese knife! :-)

Watch this space for our upcoming 'Bear Hunt' on the 10th June.

We can't wait!