Imminent excitements! Training courses with Creeping Toad

I'll be working at the two events below delivering my own particular (peculiar?) take on environment education, inspiration, play and frivolity through creativity…..

21 -22 February 2015: Annual Festival of Outdoor Learning 

at the Hollowford Centre, Castleton, Derbyshire

This two day event is a delight. Always worth visiting for new ideas, new friends and a striking setting. I'm there on the Saturday with two different sessions:

Morning: Finding Stories

Spinning new stories, wild tales and improbable characters out of found materials. Working indoors and out, we'll look at techniques to use with groups to build stories to tell, practical hints and useful themes for ourselves as leaders and additional activities to give ourselves the confidence to weave new stories on the spot

Afternoon: Wild Books

Capturing moments: new stories, precious memories, ongoing diaries. Simple book-building activities combining quick art activities with writing and reflection to allow people to make their own personal records of adventures, discoveries and inspirations

For details, booking, etc follow the link:

Hollowford

18th March 2015 (during National Science Week)

Stories out of Science

 using science outdoors to inspire literacy

~ bringing English to life in the school grounds

~shake up your science teaching at KS1 and 2

 ~ stir some new thrills into your writing workshops by finding the adventures in life cycles, the poetry of landscapes and the drama of natural processes

9.30 to 3.30 at Stibbington Centre (PE8 6LP)

Activities will include

•       the poetry of natural processes

•       a world of adventure in a single stone

•       activities for quick poems drawn from skulls, bones, shells and found objects

•       turning life cycles into dramas

•       …and more

 For details and to make a reservation at £60 per place (Cambs LA) or £70 others, contact CEES on tel 01780 782386 or email

mailto:cees.stibbington@cambridgeshire.gov.uk

If there are any problems with getting through to people, just come back to me

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Aliens, Beasts and sore throats!

and when we woke, our spaceship was flooded and the view
from the windows was wide and green and frightening

A hectic spate of workshops continue, stumbling a little here in the middle as I fall at the Sore Throat And Cold hedge. Usually, I just keep going but this time my voice has turned into a very amphibian croak and I've retreated to my home-pond for 2 days of not talking to anyone!

The last couple of weeks included some lovely days at Ness Gardens, an exciting day at the Lindley Trust's Festival of Outdoor Learning at the Hollowford Centre…and then there were the aliens and the beasts…

recording our alien discoveries

We were looking at the question "what if…", extending that as "what if aliens crashed here at Wycoller Country Park. The results were dramatic, if sad, as by the end a whole heap (herd? horde? crew?) of aliens drowned in the river when they were trying to escape on a boat they built themselves. Other stranded aliens settled in to make homes for themselves whiles till others stowed away in the back of some minibuses full fo children and escaped…..

 

the ship's records were found later
by rescuers from Home Planet

the records showed the crash
and the brave departure of the crew

some of the aliens adapted cheerfully to life on Earth

And as for the Beasts…..they'll follow in the next blog

Festival of Outdoor Learning

The Annual Festival of Outdoor Learning

Hollowford Centre, Castleton, Hope Valley, Derbyshire

 22nd and 23rd February 2014

finding stories

I've been doing workshops at these gatherings for a few years now and they are always lively, cheerful events. Excellent opportuntieis for meeting people, catching up on old friends, making new ones, exploring ideas and having good-natured arguments with people

I am only there on the Saturday  doing workshops:

• the Value of Tiny Things
• Finding Stories (details below)

there might be crows too Tiny to photograph!

 Other excitements from a very busy programme include:

• working with special needs students
• circular map making
• Biomimicry: learning from nature's genius
• trainer in a rucksack

…and lots more!

Tiny lanterns might
light a small corner 

The conference often sells out (and at only £75 for the weekend, it's a bargain - the fee includes 4 workshops,a cocommodation and food) and workshop spaces need booking.

Follow the Lindley Trust link to find out more - and come and join us!

 My workshops:

Finding stories

A lively session spinning new stories, wild tales and improbable characters out of found materials. Working indoors and out, we'll look at techniques to use with groups to build stories to tell, practical hints and useful themes for ourselves as leaders and additional activities to give ourselves the confidence to weave new stories on the spot.

The Value Of Tiny Things

Two main themes coincide in this workshop: the sheer excitement a lot of children (and older people!) find in working on a small scale and the practical limits on what equipment we can carry with us. So, with a guide to "make nothing bigger than your own hand", we'll set off to explore some Tiny Worlds with pirates and goblins, castles, treasure maps, tiny books terrible, tiny monsters. There may be even a fleet of very small ships on a very small pond

Tiny Pirates meet a Tiny mermaid