International Tiger Day
International Tiger Day happens on the 29th July 2023. It is a chance to celebrate Tigers, and educate around conservation and natural habitats. This blog post explores ways early years settings can get involved in this day.
What is International Tiger Day?
International Tiger Day is a global celebration that happens every year since 2010, to raise awareness about tiger conservation and natural habitats. People around the world celebrate International Tiger Day in a variety of ways, from information sharing too big events. As a company we are passionate believers that children are our future and that we need to teach them about the incredible world that we live in from a very young age. This is why we are supporting International Tiger Day as a company.
When is International Tiger Day?
International Tiger day is celebrated on the 29th July 2023.
Why Celebrate International Tiger Day?
There are many reasons why people celebrate International Tiger Day and below are some of them:
· In 2010 when International Tiger Day was launched, 97% of all wild tigers had disappeared (National Today)
· To protect endangered species and to tackle illegal poaching (National Today)
· To empower the future generation with knowledge about tiger conservation and natural habitats.
· Because children within their early year’s settings are interested in tigers or animals.
· To teach children about our ecosystem.
Ways of Celebrating International Tiger Day in the Early Years?
Raise money to sponsor a tiger as a setting:
One of the things that you can do as a setting is hold a fundraising event to raise money to either sponsor a tiger a setting or support a tiger conservation project. There are lots of things you can do to fundraise money and below are just 5 ideas:
1. Hold a cake sale.
2. Save 20 p’s in a smarties tube – just send smartie tubes home.
3. Pre-loved clothes sale – ask parents to donate their outgrown preloved clothes and sell them to parents that need them for a donation.
4. Sell produce to parents from the nursery’s allotment or vegetable patch.
5. Have a summer fete with hook the duck, splat the rat and traditional games.
Five of our favourite tiger books:
The Tiger Who Came to Tea by Judith Kerr
Tiger, Tiger, Burning Bright by Fiona Walters
The Last Tiger by Becky Davies
Never Touch a Tiger! By Rosie Greening
That’s Not my Tiger by Fiona Watt
Three activities to go with the story The Tiger Who Came to Tea by Judith Kerr:
Set up a tea-making tuff tray with cups, saucers, milk, sugar, jugs, tea pots, tea bags and coffees. For the children to develop their physical skills and communication and language through imaginative play. It also gives lots of opportunities for natural mathematics through exploration e.g. exploring capacity such as full, half-full and empty. Or counting how many spoons full of sugar you would like.
Have a tiger tea party and make invites for your friends and make some yummy treats such as cupcakes and sandwiches. Through setting up a tea party and cooking/making food with the children you can cover all areas of the early years foundation stage in a fun and interactive way. From problem-solving how many chairs you need around the table, to practising physical skills as they mark-make their invites, pour ingredients or learning to retell what happened in the story. The possibilities are really endless.
Make tiger masks so that you can be the tiger who came to tea. Whilst doing this activity you might want to look and talk about the patterns on tigers, how are they different to other animals? Can you get the toy small world animals out and look closely?
(Photo Credit: Chestnut Nursery School 2021 - The Tiger Who Came to Tea - Tea Party).
Paint pictures of tigers and have a tiger art gallery:
Use photos and toy tigers as a stimulus to encourage children to have a go at painting their own picture of a tiger. Host a tiger art gallery exhibiting all the children’s amazing artwork.
(Photo credits left to right: Queensway Infant Academy and Nursery (2023), Ducklings Nursery at Middleton Manchester (2021) and Monkey Puzzle Day Nursery Loughton (2021).
India:
70% of the tiger population is in India (National Today), so why not do a mini topic looking at India with the children. Here are five inspirational ideas to get you going on a journey to India:
1. Make passports and tickets, as well as setting up a role play airport and catch a plane to India.
2. Use non-fiction texts to find out information about tigers in India and set up a little news station for the children to share the information they find.
3. Look at different maps and globes and find India.
4. Set up a tuff tray of a tiger habitat and have pictures and information to go with it about tigers in India.
5. Share with children the folktale from India – The Tiger Child. You can find a video of the story here.
We would love to hear how your setting celebrated International Tiger Day. Why not leave us a comment below and let us know?
What are your goals as a company for 2023?
The other day someone asked me, “What are you goals for your business for 2023?”. So, naturally I have been thinking about this huge question…
The other day someone asked me, “What are you goals for your business for 2023?”. So, naturally I have been thinking about this huge question. I am not normally someone who is for setting new years resolutions, but what is it that Growing Together Developing Early Years wants to achieve in the next year? As a company we always trying to achieve our 5 core values, these are:
To be children centred
To be accountable
To participate in purposeful change to facilitate impact
To build strong and resilient relationships
To be people-focused
Additionally, though for 2023 as a company we want to work with you all to reinvent and refocus on our very own 3 R’s:
· Reenergise
· Refocus
· Reinspire
As we emerge as a sector from a global pandemic and being to go back to ‘normal’ live these 3 words seem to be a perfect theme to focus on in 2023. As we hear the word recession, cost of living crisis and many challenges we are facing as individuals, companies, and a sector, we want to bring some positivity through the work we do to lift everyone that we work with.
Reenergise – to work with early years settings to bring energy to our settings, after a tiring through years. To focus on energising staff and teams through supporting well-being, developing passions, creating a community of learners and live, and providing high quality education.
Refocus – To work with settings to refocus on where they are on their journey and where next? To refocus on thinking about good practice in the early years, the importance of play and the fundamentals of early years practice.
Reinspire – We want to inspire those we work with through our enthusiasm and passion, that we share through networking, social media channels and training. We want to share others inspirational practice and celebrate the excellence we see in early years settings.
This is our 3 R’s for 2023, reenergise, refocus and reinspire. We cannot wait to do this with all the wonderful settings we work with and to reach even more early years settings.
Bring on 2023!
Pauline Milsted
Director of Growing Together