Spring storytelling 2026

pop-up landscape

Spring stories, 2026

Stories in school and other excitements
with Creeping Toad,

celebrating the richness of the changing year with story-telling, puppet-making, story-building, pop-up landscapes and boxes of treasures. Outdoors or indoors, the natural world will give us stories and offer inspiration for child-led creativity!

Here are stories from the edge of summer, of new life and growth, of the green under old trees and the thrills of cold water in a mountain glen. and activities to enchant and inspire.

Gordon MacLellan – Creeping Toad –is back in northern Scotland in 2026. (Generally working around Inverness, reaching east to Forres and Elgin, west towards Ullapool, south to Strathdearn and north of Dornoch

Putting together a set of new stories and some new activities (with a few old favourites), Gordon will be in Scotland in May and again in the autumn.

Dates: 13 - 27th May 2026

24 -28th August 2026

For a sense of what else is going in Toadworld, take a look at this blog or visit the Toad Instagram 

Mammoths in Buxton snow!

Drawing on 30 years of professional experience, Gordon’s work blends environmental experience with creativity. “Much of my work uses storytelling and story making but I also make small masks, giant masks, flags, lanterns, pop-up landscapes and create wild and wonderful occasions. We might work outdoors and take ideas from the world around us and our discoveries there. Indoors, herds of model mammoths combine with boxes of treasures to give children material to work from”



A day’s visit to your school might include: 

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

a storybox

story boxes! outdoors or in, we'll use leaves and pine cones, twigs and stones and shells to inspire words, create poems and shape a set of stories never told before and finish with each child's new story built into a box of wonders.(allow 60 minutes for a class session)

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 depending upon age and theme we might make pop-up landscapes, storytowers or even foldedrivers that can run across a classroomfloor!

pop-up landscape

story characters: using found objects to inspire descriptions, we'll create a set of dramatic new characters and draw them or write them or make them as puppets



outdoor stories:(good for younger groups) ] starting with a traditional story we can head out into school grounds find the twigs, stones, feathers. leaves, grass, whatever, that will help us extend and complete the tale



simply treasure: picking up those boxes again; this time we could simply look at the world around us as a world where everything is precious and anything can be treasure: we'll forage, collect, map and maybe add a treasure-hunter or two

we can always spend time unpacking treasures!

Orchards and apples: we could pick up on the promise of richness with some orchard stories, tales of bilberries and brambles, unpredictable apple puppets (fake apples!), treasures hidden and jams made; who knows what stories wait among the fruit trees?

From across lands and times: I can select stories to suit times and places: so we have had days of Native American stories, or Egyptian or Greek or Roman, there have been Chinese tales and African animal stories….lots of exciting resources to draw on here, to make new writing vibrant and lively. Castles are popular, too, with boxes of treasures to inspire a new adventure and release a bold princess or courageous dragon

storytower

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. These can be steered in various directions and we might listen to stories from Viking days or medieval and Stuart stories and even add some Scottish explorers and their adventures and disasters…we can even build our own tiny castles, towerhouses and longships!

your own themes and ideas: or are you exploring a particular theme that you would like to involve some stories in? In recent projects, we have also made talking stone puppets, a giant eagle to hang from a classroom ceiling, prehistoric rockpools, a swarm of shadow dragons, pop-up castles

Charges: usually £280 a day. Fee includes storyteller’s fee, travel and materials. Can be paid on the day or I can invoice you. If I need to do a long journey for a single visit, I may have to charge more

a river pop-up unfolding into sunshine

Activities can be adapted to suit groups from P1 through to Secondary

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: mobile: 07791 096857

Gawain?

A new Gawain - or a different Green Knight?

our stories will use the atmospheres and
settings of Wycoller Country Park

Some 700 years ago, possibly in the now lost Dieulacres Abbey near Leek, an anonymous scribe wrote down a narrative poem of heroes and temptation, enchantment, deceit, chivalry and naughtiness. A single manuscript survived the centuries and now Gawain and the Green Knight it is one of the gems of early English literature

Packhorse Bridge at Wycoller

Inspired by the story of Gawain and the recent translations and retellings by Simon Armitage and Michael Morpurgo,  Mid-Pennine Arts, Roughlee Primary School, Whitefield Infant School and myself have embarked upon an exciting heroic adventure of our own.

Playing with the sounds and rhythms of words, inventing our own characters and working in Wycoller Country Park, we're writing our own new alliterative, narrative poems

Our stories will grow, patterns of words will change, ideas will become music (with Hannah Jones), adventures will become textiles (with Ruth Evans) and everything will go…wherever it needs to go!

First session yesterday: telling the story of Gawain to get us started, making the story with people, howling like the wolves in the woods, falling in moats, being locked in dungeons…..

More instalments will follow!

First character studies:

the wet-weather witch watches 

from windows, waving 

at passers-by

In a wild wood, wild boars snort and snuffle in the leaves,

Horses run through the trees,

And in a dark cave, deep in the woods,

At the foot of a hill lives a black bear with her babies.

Every day the bears bathe in a raging, rushing, rattling river

One knight was riding through the forest and saw

beyond the trees,

beyond the woods

The ruins of a castle

And the golden broken remains of a temple

I have worked on Gawain projects before - most notably a puppet performance for the Flash TeaPot Parade a few years ago (you can work it out - the village itself is called Flash, not necessarily a description of the various teapots)

This new project is supported by
the Clore Duffield Foundation

Duchy of Lancaster
Warburtons

Mountain tales

Mountain tales

a day of storytelling and storymaking in the Cairngorms, 

Sunday April 14th 2013

last year, this little character entertained us

an environment full of starting points

 As part of a weekend of activities on the Wilderness Guide Training Programme, I will be leading a story day at Glenmore Lodge

My day will include chance to:

• experiment with ways of making up stories with groups,   
• using the world around us - the world your wilderness walk has taken you through - to shape new stories         
• draw instant poems from weather, landscape and moment       
• techniques for learning and telling traditional stories

Make the most of those round-the-fire evenings…..

This weekend also includes workshops on natural navigation, astronomy and Scottish geology and landforms by some very exciting workshop leaders. (Watching the rings of Saturn through a  telescope on a cold Cairngorm night was one of my highpoints of last year!)

Each workshop lasts a whole day and you can book in for one day or two - or if you are inspired, perhaps you will do the whole training programme

For booking details and prices contact: http://www.wild-scotland.org.uk/pages/contact-us/

the wider horizon, 2012

The last of a Lonely Beast?

The Lonely Beast came to Wycoller and saw

1 forest, swaying in the wind, and saw

2 ducks having a fight, and saw

3 trees standing beside the river, and found

4 big puddles to splash in, and heard

5 rocks splish, splash, sploshing in the river, and saw

6 windows with no-one in them, and found

7 doors open wide and ready for a visit, and smelled

8 chimneys smoking like volcanoes, and saw

9 last leaves swaying on a branch, and heard

10 leaves falling quietly to the ground

frightened faces peered at the Beast from windows

Whitefield Infant School, Nelson: our work on the wonderful Lonely Beast book by Chris Judge culminated in a series of story readings and shadow puppet plays where a hungry witch went looking for a beast to eat.....there is a song as well - that will have to follow!

over the Pack Horse Bridge

the Beast is saved by one of the big Wycoller dogs

 The Lonely Beast has gone home now but visitors can still search through the woods and streams and ruins of Wycoller. You never where the Wycoller beasts might be hiding!

Deer, pirates and sinking ships

Summer in Richmond Park

walking to and from work has some amazing moments! Deer...



...ancient oaks



These days begin with a sunrise heralded by squawking parakeets and the clatter of jackdaws raiding the bird-feeder. Clouds are high in a pale sky and the early stillness promises warmth later. The walk into work is past ancient oaks, deer and woodpeckers with the towers of London appearing briefly down long views

adventurous pirates!

"Summer Fun" residency at the Holly Lodge Centre in Richmond Park. I've been coming here, on and off, for 10 years and more now to work, mostly, with special needs groups. This year we've been making little bottle lanterns and pirates, sailing pirate ships on the pond, building dens soft very small people, collecting useful things for adventures and looking for treasure

telling stories with pop-up theatres

But we always end up in a dilemma between what I think we could do, what carers think their charges are capable of either doing or understanding (I always reckon more than they do) and how activities re presented. I have to trust my instincts (and 30 years of professional experience) that how I work works even though I know some people do not like my style or manner. Finding the balance between listening to and respecting ideas and trusting those instincts is always a delicate one

precision and wonder

pirate ships afloat!

enjoying landscapes, finding treasures

Summer excitements

As hot sunny days arrive suddenly in a rush, I've been out and about telling stories, being told stories, making a mess and generally having a lovely time sliding people into creative ways of engaging with the world around them

A few examples follow....

Padfield

All geared up and ready for stories: a community day at Padfield village in Derbyshire for High Peak Community Arts

High Peak Comm Arts have a lovely yurt to tell stories in....

all ready for action: chair, drum and puppet.....

There was also a day at Risley Moss Country Park as part of a biodiversity project Warrington Museum have been running. Here, a team of young people and I explored the woods and made tree books, wrote new tree poems and invented some wild tree stories, aiming to use the group's existing bodiversity knowledge to inform our storytelling

MY TREE

My Tree,

It's thin and tall

but not so small,

That's my tree.

Ash and ivy are leaves

that'll scuttle up your sleeves,

That's my tree

Bright red lines are the marks

that dance around the dark brown bark,

That's my tree

There is no tree that smiles with glee

But my tree

BIO-COUNT

One bird chirping in a tree,

Two blue dragonflies fluttering by the tree,

Three damselflies chasing each other over the pond,

Four daisies blooming in the sun,

Five flies flying away,

Six children squelching in the mud,

Eight birds in a flock,

Nine trees almost making a forest,

Ten buildings in the distance

Most recently, we've just had a day of running Away with the Faeries, Goblins and Trolls....but that can make a new post

This Summer is Special

At Whitefield Infant School in Nelson, we are brewing a wonderful project that will run through the summer term. Exploring the local park, we'll build a celebration hopefully drawing school and community into a single event with music, singing, masks, monsters, sculptures and who knows what else! Other artists involved include Chris Rainham (I'll post Chris' link later) and musician Steve Brown

At the moment, the Year 2s and I are escapading around the world. We set off with high hopes...

"I want to go to Africa on a camel", "I want to fly to Pakistan in a hot-air balloon" "I will race you to Pakistan on my bicycle"; "I want to go to South America on a bus" I want to go to Manchester on a train"

At the moment we're wandering about in various rainforests (with a few people on tropical islands) falling over cocoa pods, and baobab seed rattles and even finding beautiful seashells....bulletins will follow

Starting to plan this had me looking back over other Whitefield activities so here is a poem and some pictures form other adventures with the school....

WALKING TO WYCOLLER

Class 5, Whitefield Infant School, 20^th Oct 2008

If you would like to come to Wycoller,
To look for adventures,

You must follow the path….

Pass the bright green leaves,

Touch the spiky dead flowers,

Feel the curly, spindly enchanted weeds.

Crouch under the shiny green leaves with yellow spotty spots,

Crawl under the juicy purple berries

And smell their sweet smell.

Look out at the flowers –

            tall, white pretty flowers,

            flowers like spiders webs,

            small purple flowers,

            tall brown seedy flowers and tickly grass

Creep quietly past the sleeping statues

Tiptoe carefully on the crunchy stone path

Squelch through the moist, damp spongy moss and the tall curly weeds

Don’t pull the leaves off the trees!

Don’t stand on the long, feathery leaves!

Don’t touch the stinging nettles!

Then you can stand still and gently touch the fluffy dandelions, soft as sheep

And now,

Now,

We are quiet

And Wycoller is waiting for us

Annual Festival of Outdoor Learning

03 -04 March 2012

2 days of liveliness in the Hope Valley, this annual event run by t the Lindley Trust and the Institute of Outdoor Learning is a good chance to renew old connections, forge a few new ones  and get some juicy new activities to work with

small adventures hidden all over the place...

I'm there on the Saturday with a storywalks workshop - activities to plan and lead your own walk, and a wild books session - techniques for making little books in the field as ways of recoding observations or noting down the wild adventures that are growing out of the spaces you are working in

stories are for everyone...

...we just need ourselves a bit of time

From the Hollowford website:

A Great CPD Opportunity for Outdoor Professionals, Teachers, Youth Workers and Anyone With A General Interest In The Outdoors

Only £70 for the whole weekend - includes 4 workshops, 2 nights accommodation and meals during the the event


We have a great line up of workshops already confirmed

Saturday Workshops

•                Gang Interventions - Julia Wolton

•                Ancient Technologies: Pump & Hand Drills - Dave Watson

•                Story Walks - Gordon MacLellan, Creeping Toad

•                Behavioral Safety. Being thrilled, challenged, inspired and feeling a bit (or a lot) scared AND being safe - Damian Hall

•                Group Dynamics - Dave Baines & Harvey Downey

•                Pottery In The Outdoors - Gill Jones

•                Natural Music Making - Alex Hampson

•                Ancient Technologies: Advanced Shelter Building - Dave Watson

•                Dark Skies - Dave Chalton

•                Wild Books - Gordon MacLellan, Creeping Toad

Sunday Workshops

•                Outdoor Photography - Alex Ekins

•                Earth Walks and creative ways to use them - Sarah Wilks

•                Expanding Your Toolbox. Sharing Ways to Optimize Learning on Personal Development Courses - Kate O'Brien & Elaine Hibbs

•                Philosophy Within The Outdoors - Frag Last

•                Environmental Learning Made Easy - Jim Langley

•                Spirituality & Outdoor Learning - Dan Whittaker LPIOL

•                Trainer In a Rucksack - Sam Moore, Totem Development

•                Ancient Technologies: Pump & Hand Drills - Dave Watson

•                Throwing Arrows, Make and Play - Ian Cresswell

•                Improve Your Forward Paddling - John Handyside

we can grow stories out of all sorts of things...

(and without any apology at all, most of these photos are from warmer climes than the Hope Valley in March but I am sure the excitement will be the same!)