The kids may be eagerly awaiting their turn, but for the parents, thinking of ideas for the school teddy bear diary can be a royal pain in the bum. Old Teddy comes home with your child for the weekend and expects you to break all the plans you’ve made to do absolutely nothing for two straight days. The bear-faced cheek of that toy!
So you’re here because you’ve been lumbered with the class teddy bear and chronicling his adventures in the school teddy bear diary. I feel for you, I really do. So much so in fact, that I’ve compiled a list of ideas you can do to easily fill that diary.
The first piece of advice I can give you is not to look in the diary.
In there is weeks’ worth of other parents vying to outdo one another with better activities to take the class teddy bear on. If your child gets the teddy after everyone else has been one-upping the previous entries they’ve seen, you’ll end up jetting away somewhere just to take teddy selfies with the Sphinx and Pyramids in the background.
Ideas for School Teddy Bear Diary
All of these ideas are very simple and perfect for if you’ve already got plans that have pretty much filled your weekend before it even begins. These take no time at all, and will still look great in the diary.
1. Take the Class Teddy Bear to the Park
Easy. That’s one in the bag straight away. You have a primary school-aged child; I’m taking it as a given that you know where a decent local park is. I’ll even compose the picture for you. Child in one swing, Ted in the other. Bosh. My friend Mark Brye does this every year, and it’s a surefire success every time.
2. Feeding the Ducks/Horses/Any Animal you can get Your Hands on
You might be lucky enough to have a duck pond in your local park, so you can kill two birds with one stone (figuratively of course, nobody wants to see Ted doing that). No ducks? Find a field with some horses or sheep in. You don’t have to actually feed them. Just get close enough for a photo and tell them you did. Ted’s been at this game for years, he knows the score and won’t tell on you.
Turns out that bread isn’t actually much good for ducks though. If you’re planning on feeding some, the BBC have a good guide for things that ducks can eat.
3. Trip to a Grandparent’s House
Grandparents are always willing to help out with stuff like this. A photo with one of them is an easy entry for the school teddy bear diary.
Look at that, three things and it’s not even Saturday lunchtime yet!
4. Eating Out
Speaking of lunchtime, don’t forget to get the obligatory ‘Teddy eating out’ snap. If nothing else, it’s an excuse for a pub lunch.
Before you even think about it, I know it’s tempting to throw in a pic of the class teddy bear face down under a pub table with an empty bottle of Peroni, but you can bet that at least one parent’s had the same idea every year. It’s unoriginal, and the teachers won’t thank you for ruining their book.
5. Weekend Clubs/Sports
You cursed yourself initially for signing your child up to early morning football club, but now it’s paying off. A very easy entry to show some of your kid’s interests and somewhere else for Ted to go. Perfect.
Unfortunately, my son’s football club wasn’t running on the weekend we had the class teddy bear, we ended up just having a kickabout in the garden.
So there’s some ideas for your school teddy bear diary that are incredibly easy to do if you’re short on time. If you find yourself with a bit more time on your hands though, head out to somewhere with an interesting local landmark or something. That’s always teddy diary gold. These ideas though, are plenty enough if you’re on a tight schedule, and your child will still have a grand old time, honestly.
Want to know how to get your kid to tell you how their day at school’s been? Here’s some tips.
Can’t get out at all? Check out this list of the best garden toys.
Or look for some fun activity hacks for every type of dad.