Wednesday 10 December 2014

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!

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

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.

Gordon MacLellan – Creeping Toad is one of Britains foremost environmental art and education workersand he tells stories as well! 

Here are some workshops and suggestions for activities that you might like to jump onto for a session in your school - or other centre

A days visit to your school (or country park, library or exciting crypt...) 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 well 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 storytellers 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!

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