Little Ivy’s Stay and Play – A Toddler’s Tale

Geoffrey Chaucer’s most famous work is the ‘Canterbury Tales’; a combination of prose and verse telling a story of thirty pilgrims on a journey from Southwark to Canterbury Cathedral to the shrine of St Thomas Becket. Each pilgrim engages in a story competition to win the prize of a meal at the Tabard Inn, and tells their tale; ‘The Knight’s Tale’, ‘The Pardoner’s Tale’, ‘The Nun’s Priest’s Tale’… it is suggested there were meant to be 100 tales but Chaucer died, leaving an unfinished collection of only 24. What if he had completed the Canterbury Tales? What if we had a modern day version? Would it have included, ‘A Toddler’s Tale’? Perhaps a toddler’s preferred genre would be reality, juxtaposed with adventure, spliced with a sprinkling of fantasy and maybe a little muddled in places to create great suspense. What if it was ‘A Little Ivy’s Stay and Play Toddler’s Tale’? Perhaps the setting would begin in ‘The ordinary world’, in the new toy kitchen with our main protagonist, ‘Teddy’ from the craft table as the valiant but reluctant heroine, wearing a shiny suit of … pink wool, with her trusty sidekick, ‘Runner Bean’, the mermaid and… ‘But, oh no, Mermaid has gone missing.’ Teddy embarks on a dangerous quest for adventure on a runaway unicorn, they head Southwest, galloping through a canyon of carrot cake by the serving hatch, past pasta pass on the sensory table. That double crossing peacock named ‘Chicken’ has sabotaged the route, Teddy faces many tests, she swims through perilous waters of pink and blue sea foam waters, infested with an ostrich, Siberian tigers and a polar bear. On this perilous journey she meets Minion and Elsa, the wicked villain inspired from the new dressing up rail. THE END… sorry, about the abrupt ending, will it pass as a cliff hanger? Toddlers have ceased telling their tales as it is time to decorate homemade teddy biscuits at the biscuit table!

Thank you to Croydon High for providing Little Ivy’s with so many opportunities to inspire imagination; a new toy kitchen, a dressing up rail, new wild animal figures, new dinosaurs, creative crafts and activities, our toddlers’ imaginations know no limits. I hear so many ‘thank yous’ and tales from both toddlers and carers which show how much they appreciate CHS’s efforts; ‘Little Ivy’s is the highlight of our week’, ‘my toddler shouts out, “Little Ivy’s” every time we drive past’ and ‘How will we survive without Little Ivy’s during the holidays?’

Mrs Anita Reeves