Children at Hargrave Park Extended Community School in Islington chosePaddington to be their representative for the IBM's Travelling ToysProject, which aims to increase understanding of different cultures andcountries among pre-school children in Europe by sending toys abroad tovisit overseas settings.
Paddington travelled to Poland, Portugal, Austria and Finland over thecourse of his four-week trip and the children, aged betweenthree-and-a-half and four-and-a-half, were able to exchange messages,photographs and postcards with him over the internet. When Paddington'stravels came to an end, Hargrave Park nursery threw a welcome home partyfor him, complete with marmalade sandwiches.
Mika Pater-Fonseka, Travelling Toys co-ordinator for Hargrave Parknursery, said, 'I was pleased to see Paddington travelling to Poland, asI am Polish, and it was nice to see the children learn something aboutmy culture. The project was great - as well as helping to improvechildren's knowledge and understanding of the world, it also developedtheir ICT skills. They used digital cameras and handmade videos, sente-mails and very quickly engaged with the technology. We followedPaddington's journey on a map and each week we would say he travelled bya different method of transport, so if we went by train, we would set upthe train set and then recreate his journey for small-world play.'
Hargrave Park has decided to extend Paddington's travels by asking thefamilies of children at the nursery to take the bear on their nextholiday abroad.
