Tag Archives: story workshops

The Adventurewoods

Into the Adventurewoods

creating characters
creating characters

During the summer of 2017, as part of our Do It Together project for Rudheath and Witton Together, we worked with Rudheath Primary Academy on storymaking. Mixing visual art with outdoor learning and stories, we created a school story that grew as it moved from class to class. Each group picked up where the one before left off and took our adventure further, or they added to the background detail and the story-ecology of Rudheath. These sessions were planned as Family Learning Events, inviting parents, grandparents,  and guardians to join us and working with activities and ideas that we hoped children and adults could take away and play with in their own right at other times. This strategy has been a delightful success with enthusiastic adults pitching in, drawing, making , laughing and talking with our storymaking teams of children

one of the rare Rudheath Rainbow Unicorns
one of the rare Rudheath Rainbow Unicorns

 

We grew Street Stories: tales of the streets of Northwich where the last whispers of the Midnight Garden with its Unicorn Flowers linger on the corner of Belmont St, where the Tornado Trees can still be found in unexpected places and where the lost Golden Shoe and its Mouse might yet be found

 

 

a certain Pink Frog princess became an important character
a certain Pink Frog princess became an important character

We grew a whole tale of a quest for a stolen rabbit that took us far from the streets we knew, through the wildwoods and the dangerwoods until, at last, in the adventurewoods, our heroes feasted from the spaghetti trees and the candyfloss trees and at the end of their journey had to make a choice with a multi-coloured man in a multi-coloured boat…

 

The full story can be downloaded here.

The Adventurewoods booklet 4

It should print out on A4 landscape and if you print odd pages first then turn those pages over and print even you should get a booklet you can fold and staple together

mapping sections of the story
mapping sections of the story

 

RWT

Save

Save

Winter tales and Spring stories

 

 

Winter tales and Spring stories

Stories in school with Creeping Toad

December 2014 – April 2015

marking the changing edge of the year, here are old stories, new adventures and chances to create tales that no-one else has ever heard before!

With stories running from the frozen edges of the world right through to the first flowers of spring and the waking of the bumblebees, here are stories and activities to enchant and inspire.

 

in performance, photo c/o Laurence Crossman-Emms and the Woodland Trust

Gordon MacLellan – Creeping Toad – is one of Britain’s foremost environmental art and education workers…and he tells stories as well! Take a look at the Toadblog: Creeping Toad

 Here are some suggestions for activities that you might like to invite into your school,

park, library or thrilling crypt (I’m very broad-minded). Booking details are at the foot of the page

A day’s visit to your school might include

 

storytelling performances: lasting up to 60 minutes for up to 90 children at a time

stories out of anything! usually we might do this outside but given wintry weather, we’ll use leaves and pine cones, twigs and stones and shells indoors to inspire words, create poems and shape a set of stories never told before (allow 60 minutes for a class session)

 

story and book workshops: taking a bit longer (allow 90 minutes for a class) as well as discovering those stories no-one has ever heard before, now we will build those into the books that no-one has ever read before and leave the classroom with a library no-one has ever visited before!

pop-up storyscapes: allow an hour for a class: gathering ideas, images and words we’ll make quick 3-d landscapes holding the essence of a story or maybe the thrills of a lifecycle in a setting, key characters and the words that set the adventure running

Winter lights: finding words and images to hold the essence of winter or the hopes of spring in quick poems, we’ll slide words  and pictures into lanterns and make a swarm of small glowing lanterns to glow through the darkest nights or gloomiest days

shadow stories: out of my stories might come new stories: drawing on whatever theme we are working with to create quick performances of shadow puppets. Incorporating silhouettes, translucence and transparency, we’ll mix science with story to create an (almost) instant set of story performances to show or perhaps to film

 

Ancient Lives: add a voice from the distant past to your history topics with stories that our Stone, Bronze or Iron Age ancestors might have listened to. Stories. models, artefacts and drawings can feed into art inspired by cave paintings, carvings and jewellery

your own themes and ideas: or are you exploring a particular theme that you would like to involve some stories in? pirates….tropical islands….ancient Greeks…fairies, frogs and trolls…..where in our school would bears live?…the Great Fire of London  have all featured in recent Creeping Toad projects

 

Charges: £250 a day: includes storyteller’s fee, travel and materials. Can be paid on the day or I can invoice you. Activities can be adapted to suit groups from KS 1, 2 or 3

 

For further information: visit the Creeping Toad website at http://creepingtoad.blogspot.co.uk/

To book: contact Gordon directly at

creepingtoad@btinternet.com

or by telephone:

landline: 01298 77964

mobile: 07791 096857

 

you never know who, or what, will end up in a Creeping Toad story!

 

 

 

 

Hathersage adventures

Today was the first of two days building stories in the wide and exciting grounds of St Michael’s Primary School in Hathersage

 

A few morsels…..

playing with presentation

 

Journey poems led us into stories and building characters

Under the roots,

And over the trees,

Across the forgotten field

Behind the mossy wall.

Through the holly bushes

And there beside a muddy stream, beneath an old grey willow,

A damp goblin lives

 

I use an activity “here, there, everywhere, and nowhere” just to get ideas moving. Today with Year 3s it gave two quick pieces that seemed to feed one into the other…

Group A

Here comes a black knight, marching out of the gloomy forest

There, in the mini-beasts’ home, curious ants creep up towards the surface

Everywhere, a strong wind blows from a ghost’s breath

There was nowhere we could escape from this terrifying school

 

 

Group B

Here are the children standing quietly by the window

(here are the children, climbing out of the window)

Everywhere the teachers are looking,

because there is something suspicious going on

There by the minibeasts’ hotel, the children suddenly disappear

The children were nowhere to be seen!

a lively mixing of characters....

 

I like these two sets… this final image (for now) is a bit grimmer, but I love the “dusty old graves”!

Storytelling tour: Wild Tales And Animals

Wild tales and animals

Stories in school with Creeping Toad September 2013

celebrating the Year of Natural Scotland here are old stories, new adventures and impossible fictions about the wildlife of Scotland

 

From heroic mice to wrens, eagles and mysterious trees we’ll meet stories that encourage us to look with new eyes on the world around us and remember that there are stories inside the humblest of creatures and the most ordinary of plants, and that we can all have adventures too

 

I am Gordon MacLellan – Creeping Toad – allegedly one of Britain’s foremost environmental art and education workers…and I tell stories as well! Take a look at the Toadblog:

http://creepingtoad.blogspot.co.uk

 

Between 2nd and 13th September, 2013 (and probably again in November), I will be working in the Highland area (at least) and is available for bookings….

 

A day’s visit to your school might include

 

storytelling performances: lasting up to 60 minutes for up to 90 children at a time

 

just give them a chance and stories and children absorb each other

stories outside! using the school ground, we’ll take storymaking out of the classroom and use the immediate environment, the day’s weather and whatever we can find to inspire words, create poems and shape a set of stories never told before (allow 60 minutes for a class session)

 

story and book workshops: taking a bit longer (allow 90 minutes for a class) as well as discovering those stories no-one has ever heard before, now we will build those into the books that no-one has ever read before and leave the classroom with a library no-one has ever visited before!

 

pop-up storyscapes: allow an hour for a class: gathering ideas, images and words we’ll make quick 3-d landscapes holding the essence of a story in a setting, key characters and the words that set the adventure running

tales of old Scotland: a collection of stories of Highland folklore and Scottish histories, of heroes and sorrows, bravery and the magics of sea, mountain and moor

 

your own themes and ideas: or are you exploring a particular theme that you would like to involve some stories in? pirates….tropical islands….ancient cave people…..where in our school would bears live?…castle adventures,  have all featured in recent Creeping Toad projects

 

I rather hope this isn't one of the heroes of old Scotland

Charges: £250 a day: includes storyteller’s fee, travel and materials. Can be paid on the day or I can invoice you

 

For further information:

visit the Creeping Toad website at http://creepingtoad.blogspot.co.uk/

 

To book: contact Gordon directly at

creepingtoad@btinternet.com

or by telephone:

landline: 01298 77964

mobile: 07791 096857

sometimes new stories need ancient characters

Stories for a lonely Beast

Over the last 3 weeks, I’ve been working with children from Whitefield Infant School at Wycoller Country Park.

 

Wycoller Hall is ruined now

 

Each of three Year 2 classes has had a day at the Park working with musician Steve Brown and myself, using the wonderful Wycoller environment to inspire stories, poems songs and music about the Lonely Beast. In the book by Chris Judge, the Lonely Beast goes all over the world looking for other beasts to befriend…we picked up on his arrival in Wycoller….here are a couple of the children’s poems

 

the beautiful arches of the Packhorse Bridge

Arriving at Wycoller

The Lonely Beast went to Wycoller and saw

 

1 ruin where there might be dangerous ghosts, and saw

2 dogs barking loudly behind the gates, and heard

3 birds singing in the trees, and saw

4 slippery, mossy rocks beside the river, and saw

5 parked cars with nobody in them, and saw

6 houses full of frightened people, and took

7 big steps to get up the steep hill, and heard

8 chattering children splashing through the river, and heard

9 quacking ducks racing across the pond and saw

10 leaves drifting beside the high trees

climb up the long stair....


 

 

 

 

 

 

How to find a Wycoller beast

Look under the bridge over the fast, stony river

For trolls in the shadows and slime,

Creep beside the river, with the tall trees dropping leaves,

Run up the long stairs where the goblins hide,

Then back down the path, sliding in the mud,

By the pond where the ducks play

And in the ruins, inside the fireplace,

Maybe Beasts hide there

 

 

Stories from the woods

our storytelling camp

Stories that grew out of a beautiful autumn day in Plas Power Woods for the Woodland Trust with some 40 people visiting us through the day, along with several friendly dogs, a possible bear and occasional breezes. We listened to tales of animals and children and monsters and learned that we need

long ago, Conker Trees were the Hundred-handed Giants

to be kind to Conker Trees as they remember when they could still run around the dance and play….

 

the Witch

 

down by the stream, an old witch lives

Deep in the woods, an old witch lives

If you are careful you might find her,

Putting on make-up down by the stream

Mud for lipstick,

Berry eyeshadow,

her hair is leaves and grass

Her eyelashes twigs

Stick eyebrows arch over

Eyes as dark as a forest pool

In skin as green and grey and rough as bark


You might see her there,

A shadow by the rapids

Sharpening stones on the riverbank

Fitting her mouth for teeth

 

The Lost Fairies

One bright autumn day, two woodland fairies, Stephanie and Jasmine, were out exploring the forest. They should have been busy flying the Royal Butterflies but were fed up up with the Butterflies because whenever the girls took them out, the insects all flew in different directions and the little fairies felt as if their arms were going to be pulled off!

 

So today, they had tied the butterflies to a bouncy tree branch and gone off looking for an adventure

 

Stephanie and Jasmine went deep into the woods. Here, they could hear the rushing of the river and the rustling of the leaves. They felt the roughness of bark and smelt the dampness of water and mud and moss

In the middle of the woods, in a pool of sunlight by the river, they met a beautiful blue dragonfly.

The dragonfly told the girls about a wonderful white deer that had been seen in the woods, a rare and magical animal

Through the woods,

Under the oak trees,

Over the logs,

Beside the stream,

Across the river on the stepping stones

The fairy girls went hunting

 

But somewhere

Between one tree and the next,

Between daytime and night-time,

Between sunset and moonrise,

In the mist and the woods,

Where the squirrels look down from the branches,

And the hedgehogs look up from the bushes,

The fairy girls disappeared and

No-one has seen them again. Yet…

 

 

Bob the Duck

 

One sunny and windy afternoon, a very hot duck was swimming in the river trying to cool down, when suddenly a huge holly leaf blew down on the wind and landed on his head! The leaf was very spiky and knocked some of his feathers out.

Bob the duck went swimming away down the river. At a very loud waterfall he stopped and listened to some birds singing. A girl came to look at the waterfall and the birds. Bob didn’t want the girls to see him so he swam further and further down to the very bottom of the waterfall.

But as swam down, he could smell delicious pie. The smell wasn’t coming from the bottom of the pond but from up where the girl was. Bob decided that he didn’t care if the girl stroked him – he just wanted pie!

Bob swam up to the top of the pool and the girl said, “What are you looking for?” and Bob said, “I’m looking for pie”. So the girl showed Bob the way to the pie. But as they walked through the woods, a giant spiky conker fell on the girl’s head. It hurt.

So Bob helped the girl through the wood and forgot that he was missing some feathers. When they found the pie, they both felt better and stayed together to have pie for tea

Woodland Tales

hoping for clear skies....

Tree Tellings!

Saturday 20th October 2012

Plas Power Woods near Wrexham

Meet Nant Mill Visitor Centre

11am – 3.30pm

arrive anytime – after 11, there will be a self-guided storytrail to take you down to our camp in the woods

What are we doing?

I’ll be telling woodland stories and tales of trees: of dancing birch trees and sad cedars, of the dramatic history of horse chestnuts and why we need to be very careful around oak and willow trees

 

The walk through the woods will give us new stories, as well, building new adventures for visitors to the woods out of the sounds we hear, the smells of autumn, fallen twigs and floating leaves: anything might feed into new tales!

 

To find out more and get directions, visit the Woodland Trust site 

 

the richness of autumn will feed our stories

 

 

 

Creeping Toad on tour, Highlands September 2012

Creeping Toad in action, Apple Day at the Dove Valley Centre, October 2012

What else could happen?

Creeping Toad on tour,

3 – 14th September 2012

what else could go wrong?

what other trick could we play?

what will happen next?

 

With stories to inspire, enchant and engage, workshops to captivate, books to make and new adventures to find, Creeping Toad stories involve participants in worlds of marvel and wonder and leave people full of words and images and ready for action

“like dogs who need toys to have fun and be happy, children need fun and to play to be happy. Then we learn well. With Gordon we play and have fun and learn at the same time”

Year 5 pupil, Runcorn, 2011

 

Gordon MacLellan – Creeping Toad – is one of Britain’s foremost environmental art and education workers…and he tells stories too!

 

Between 3rd and 14th September, 2012  (and again in November), Gordon will be working in the Highland area (at least) and is available for a few bookings….

 

building stories out of found objects and occasional treasures

A day’s visit to your school might include

 

storytelling performances: lasting up to 60 minutes for up to 90 children at a time

 

stories outside! using the school ground, we’ll take storymaking out of the classroom and use the immediate environment, the day’s weather and whatever we can find to shape a set of stories never told before (allow 60 minutes for a class session)

 

story and book workshops: taking a bit longer (allow 90 minutes for a class) as well as discovering the stories that no-one has ever heard before, now we will build those into the books that no-one has ever read before and leave the classroom with a library no-one has ever visited before!

 

tales of old Scotland: a collection of stories of Highland folklore and Scottish histories, of heroes and sorrows, bravery and the magics of sea, mountain and moor

 

your own themes and ideas: or are you exploring a particular theme that you would like to involve some stories in? pirates….tropical islands….ancient cave people…..where in our school would bears live?…castle adventures,  have all featured in recent Creeping Toad projects

 

Charges: £250 a day: includes storyteller’s fee, travel and materials. Can be paid on the day or I can invoice you

 

effective storymaking invites us to step out of busyness and appreciate the world about usFor further information:

visit the Creeping Toad website at www.creepingtoad.com

To book: contact Gordon directly at

creepingtoad@btinternet.com

or by telephone:

landline: 01298 77964

         mobile: 07791 096857

 

 

 

 

 

Excitements at Annesley

A few days working with Foundation Stage children at Annesley Primary School, Nottinghamshire.

camels got priority in our desert tents!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

With a theme “Children in other countries”, we set off on expeditions to make new friends:

 

We could fly in a ‘plane

            We could drive in a car

            We could ride on a donkey

            Or hang onto a motorbike

            We could sail in a boat

            Or gallop in a horse

            We could squeeze all of us onto one elephant

            Or have an elephant each

            Or we could sit on a flying carpet

 

Children went off exploring, finding other adventures, other animals, other children

 

            One group went to cold places and made a tent and a campfire. They cuddled up with polar bears at night to keep warm. They met wolves and bears and many friendly animals

 

the arctic encampment (including stray penguin)

            In Africa. another group saw lions, but were not afraid, although on person was scared of elephant noises

 

Working in the school garden, we made those tents, built those shelters, found homes for monkeys, frogs and crabs, assembled that picnic ( nuts, apples, leaf-ice-cream), photographing and drawing the results. Eventually we made friends with other children and recorded our adventures on pop-up cards with grown-ups doing the writing because when you are 4 years old it’s useful to have minions to do those sort of things….

 

On a tropical island, children made houses and met giant tortoises

And Jack (3 years old) said:
The eagle and the owl are friends,

            And beavers make dams,

            Whales swim in the sea,

            And squirrels climb trees,           

            But the eagle flies

            High in the sky.

 

inside of a pop-up card - an animal friend

 

assembled stories