ABSTRACT
In this chapter I will look at the effect the Bear and the Little Witch had on the learning and emotional development of a number of individual children. Often, when we analyse the effectiveness of our teaching, individual children come to mind who seem to have slipped through the net with regard to levels of motivation and interest in the work being done. However, with these two groups of children there was only one child who did not respond wholeheartedly. This child joined the class half-way through the Bear year and found it very hard to pick up the intensity of the feelings of the other children. Such children joining a class in mid-session often take time to settle in, for I have to admit that it was hard for a newcomer to step into the situations created. The rest of the children were drawn effortlessly into the fantasies and blossomed despite the fact that both classes had the usual mixture of abilities and needs. Amongst the two groups there were a number of children for whom the fantasy experience had particularly beneficial effects.
