To return the class bear with a note saying thanks, but no thanks

[Wailywailywaily]

DS has the Reception class Bear to entertain this weekend. The bear has two books full of his previous adventures and TBH he has a busy life.

I'm ashamed to say that he has now spent the entire weekend in his suitcase .

DS gets a lot of homework for a reception child IMO - spellings, drawing and reading - and I can't be bothered to make him come up with an adventure for the Bear as well.

So I was thinking that the Bear seems to need a rest anyway and perhaps it would be just fine to send him back having had a good long snooze?

Banned, what?

I seem to remember mumsnet having a "class bear". He WAS a naughty bear Always falling into various alcoholic drinks and chatting up the barbies...

It's the photos I hate. We had to get everything done on the friday, get photos printed in boots on the saturday, then sort it out for homework on the sunday. The bear did exciting things like go to the launderette and sainsburys.
We did send the bear back in a draw string back that I made for it. (The books and bear would of got lost in the sea of crap here!)
I think the only impressive thing was the bear bag had a plastic window because my son said "oliver the bear will get scared of the dark"!
Everyone else went to legoland and restaurants!

Lucky it's just a bear. DD2's teacher is actively looking for "volunteers" to look after the class stick insects and the class fruit beetles over half term. We won't be putting our hands up....

Luckily there is no such thing where we live (school isn't meant to be fun but DD did ask for a sleepover "so I'll have something cool to say when we say what we've done at the weekend - and can you do something funny please, or make DS2 do something funny, so sleepover friend will put her hand up to talk about it too! I wouldn't mind but most weekends are dominated by ferrying her and/or or her brother to their sports matches, but apparently that doesn't make a good circle time story

I must confess I enjoyed having the bear (s) round as guests for weekends/ half terms. It made me take pictures of 'the normal stuff' as well as whatever we were doing for an 'adventure' at the weekend. They don't have them anymore. I still like to look at the pictures of them beaming with delight at the library / coffee shop. Because unlike 'a normal mummy wants peace and quiet outing' , which I confess at the risk of a MN slapping ...library and coffee shop trips are. They have THE BEAR on these days and the joy ooozes out of the pictures.

I wonder what they'd do if you drew a picture of the bear a la bad taste bears and said he'd spent the weekend with s&m swingers?

Everyone hates copping for the class bear and the truth is he spends most of his life in a suitcase on a high shelf away from harms way.
Lots of parents write it for their DC and get child to scribble a picture.
The lasyt time we had the bear was the weekend when the teacher knew we were moving house!

Slightly different, but we had the Knitted Nativity playing on the Wii, downing some of Dad's beer and reading the Beano.

Surely Bear having his own MN thread is enough for any school... Just put a link to this thread in the book.

Classic idea!

Hello teacher!

Perhaps the bear caught one of the bugs going around - a few pics of it with its head in the toilet and sitting on the toilet, and tucked up in bed would do it - and you could take til Wed to get them printed due to the 48 hour rule.

Do you really have to take and print photos the same weekend? That's a big ask! I was furious when DD's young teaching practice student set them a project to photograph a tree every week from September right through til July and every single week print the pictures and hand it in with an accompanying piece of writing - annoyed me a lot because itwas hhomework for me not DD, tosrdrive a 40km 'round trip every single week to print one single photo as we don't have a photo printer (surely most people don't) and DD was adamant everyone was handing in proper glossy photos not black and white print outs on ordinary printer paper.

I used to teach 4+ (many many years ago) and we had Tessie bear. In the end I got so sick of it all I asked a mum to send a postcard from Tessie from Spain or somewhere saying how much she loved it there and was staying. It all worked well, the kids bought it etc, and I was going to throw her away. Then when it came to it, I just couldn't do it. I thought of all the snotty hugs and circle times we'd had with Tessie and I couldn't throw her away, so I hid her in the cupboard where she stayed for several months. Then one day, I was getting something out of the cupboard and a child spotted her and shouted, 'Tessie's back!!!!!' and we had to go through the whole thing again!!

So I would say, don't worry about it. Say the bear had a bad weekend and was poorly. It needed a loooong sleep!

I have compromised. I know I am B a little bit U

Good idea, take a picture of the bear in bed, bear was too tired this weekend, due to his very exciting previous adventures. Job done

Omg I still break in to a cold sweat remembering the class bear. We took him out for the day with us and LOST him. Spent the rest of the weekend on the phone frantically trying to track him down.

Had to go in to school on the Monday and confess to class of wobbly lipped tearful children that we'd lost the bear. Dd donated one of hers as a replacement. More wobbly lips and tears. The whole thing is a minefield.

Then when we went to Disney, we had to take the blimmin Beavers mascot with us (yep as if the school doing it wasn't bad enough, Beavers decided to join in the fun with their own pita friend to foist on families ). After the bear incident I didn't dare let it out of sight and spent a whole day dragging a huge stuffed beaver around. I looked like a loon.

Can you email a couple of photos to a neighbour...

Sorted, OP.

I'll bet most parents inwardly groan when they get the bear whilst of course being v chuffed that their dc got star of the week

Well done, OP btw.

BTW we were terrified the puppy would chew up the bear - beyond terrified - he really can destroy a soft toy in seconds. No greater care was ever taken of the class bear

We had the bear, and the book, and MIL dropped a huge glass of red wine all over the book and bear when DS was showing it to her, it seeped through the paper, ruining many children's photos and their painstakingly written stories about their time with bear, and I couldn't get the smell of stale alcohol out of bear, no matter how much I scrubbed. Mortified doesn't even begin to cover it

I'm so glad we're not the only ones to have lost a class bear! We drowned ours by accident, ds dropped it in the sea off the south coast and it got swept out faster than you could blink

We also once took one to two beer festivals in one weekend

I have all this to come as my LO is still gestating, but I'm curious...

Does everyone really send in printed photos at a few days notice?

Bugger that, I think I'll be quite up for the whole bear thing but photos taken on my phone will be emailed to the teacher for them to bloody print out!