Kites and monsters: public events

Kites, Monsters and Trees

public events in the Autumn

As the summer turns towards autumn, the rosehips redden and the blackberries ripen on the brambles, we have a lively series of public events coming up. Some are Stone and Water, some are Creeping Toad: most are a bit of both!

More details are still to come for some but get these in your diary!

September

Sunday 21st: Autumn Kites 1: make and fly a kite inspired by the winged wildlife of Buxton. Drop in an exercise your flying skills! Design and make your own kite: we’re hoping for swallows, swifts, falcons, bats, bees and butterflies…..

Venue: Ashwood Park, Bakewell Rd, Buxton, SK17 9TB. (At the Morrisons end of the Park)

Time:10:30 - 15:30,

Cost: free

Organiser: Stone and Water

Project: Art in Action: setting out to build skills and bring people together

October

Saturday 4th: Autumn Woodland: a Fun Palaces event looking at trees and woodland wildlife: making bee houses, pop-up forests and giant drawings

Venue: Serpentine Walks, Burlington Rd, Buxton, SK17 9AL.

Time: 10:30 - 15:30

Cost: free

Organiser: Stone and Water with Creeping Toad, Buxton Wild Weeks and the Babbling Vagabonds

Project: Celebrating Woodland for Derbyshire Wildlife Trust

Sunday 5th: Wirksworth Wizarding day

I am telling stories through the day on this amazing festival of magic, wizards, witches and wildness!

Magical creatures and wonderful monsters
old tales of enchantment. Here you may meet unicorns and dragons, boggarts, mermaids and stoorworms. Our stories will take us from the hills and rivers of Derbyshire to the wild north of Scotland. Add your own monster to the mix and slide a page into - or out of - The Wirksworth Bestiary. Suitable for families.

Details and booking: https://www.wizardingday.com/activities

A Creeping Toad day

Friday 24th

Assembly Rooms Buxton: a day with Buxton Wild Weeks exploring sustainability, biodiversity and the richness of our local environments Details to follow

More details to follow

Tuesday 28th: Autumn Kites 2: make and fly a kite inspired by the winged wildlife of Buxton. Drop in an exercise your flying skills! Design and make your own kite: we’re hoping for swallows, swifts, falcons, bats, bees and butterflies. Given that we are very close to Hallowe’en, we’re expecting a few broomstick kites and maybe some floating ghosts tangled in the treetops…we’ll be making indoors in the library and flying in the Rec

Venue: Buxton Library, Kents Bank Rd, Buxton, SK17 9HW.

Time: 10:30 - 15:30

Cost: free

Organiser: Stone and Water with Creeping Toad

Project: Art in Action: setting out to build skills and bring people together


Friday 31st

And at end the month, join us for a thoroughly spooky day at Ryecroft Hall, Audenshaw for Tameside MBC. There will be stories, masks to make, gargoyles build and sinister grinning goblins to hide in corners at home!

Details to follow

Organiser: Creeping Toad

storytellings, 2025

treasures to unpack, stories to unfold

Spring stories,

summer tales 2025

Stories in school and other excitements with Creeping Toad,

and ideas for public events!

 celebrating the richness of the changing year, here are stories, 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!

Important dates:

World Book Day 6th March 2025- booked but other dates that week are available
On tour in northern Scotland:

• 18th - 27th March 2025
• 28th April - 9th May 2025 SOLD OUT

NEW TOUR DATES ADDED:

• 23rd - 30th June: Hereford and Worcester

 

other days, other dates, other places!

With stories spinning from the first signs of spring through earth giants and thunder-tigers to summer flowers, here are stories and activities to enchant and inspire.

Gordon MacLellan – Creeping Toad – is one of Britain’s leading environmental art and education workers. Take a look at the Toadblog: Creeping Toad

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 - or a public event in a library, museum, the park at the end of the road, might include:

storytelling performances: lasting up to 60 minutes for up to 90 children at a time stories out of anything! 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 (allow 60 minutes for a class session)

NEW WORKSHOP: tools for writing

Taking natural objects, we'll build characters, use landscapes to describe journeys and reveal issues, problems or maybe terrible crimes. This workshop will give children ideas and tools for building stronger imagery into their writing and confidence to experiment and be adventurous with their writing. Most Creeping Toad sessions create stories but this is more focussed on literacy skills

puppets: we can make quick finger puppet animals or adventurers and create instant stories...or we might play with light, colour and shape and create an instant shadow puppet show or make rod and ribbon puppets to wander across a classroom....

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

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!

long, low, meandering river pop-up

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. 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…

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: £280 a day (if you are a long way from my base in Buxton, Derbyshire, that price might need to increase a little
Fee 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 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

slightly wild "prehistoric mouse"

Spring stories 2024

 

Spring stories, 2024

Stories in school and just about anywhere 

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

 

With stories spinning from the first signs of spring through mountain giants and excited rabbits to pirates and mermaids, here are stories and activities to enchant and inspire.

Gordon MacLellan – Creeping Toad – is one of Britain’s leading environmental art and education workers. Take a look at the Toadblog: Creeping Toad

 

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 form the world around us and our discoveries there. Indoors, there may be shadow puppets and boxes of treasures to inspire children and encourage some fabulous stories”

 

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! 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 (allow 60 minutes for a class session)

finger puppets: we can make quick finger puppet animals or adventurers and create instant stories

shadow puppets: playing with light, translucence and animation to create stories and instant performance ….see here for more information

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

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. 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…

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: on request 

Fee 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 P1/Yr 1 through to Secondary

 

 

For further information or to book:

contact Gordon directly at

            creepingtoad@btinternet.com

Shadows and stories

shadow puppet workshops with Creeping Toad

From classroom stories

To library adventures,

Museum mysteries

To enchanted gardens,

Join Creeping Toad to create some shadow puppet stories

Shadow puppet sessions with Creeping Toad offer a chance to play with light and shade, experiment with design and animation, colour and translucence…a workshop might lead to the beauty of forests playing across a classroom ceiling, a parade of historical characters or the delightful chaos of a flight of dragons

We can 

• Cut silhouettes adding coloured sections and textures
• Create lumpy monsters or delicate birds
• Fashion small characters with moving arms or legs or wings
• Think about buildings and windows, staircases and dungeons
• Make whole landscapes that fit onto rotating platforms and throw shapes across a wall or ceiling

In a school or public events, workshops need 90 mins – 2 hours (1 class at a time in schools) – ideal for 2 sessions in a day and a final performance

To find out more, contact Gordon (Creeping Toad) :

creepingtoad@btinternet.com

 

there was a very small mouse somewhere.....

last scatterings of coins

A last scatter of coins

events for

Hoards: a hidden history of ancient Britain

 

from our "Curious Coins" morning

"sow's ears and silk purses"

The coins have scattered across the board, fallen on the floor, jingled into purses, rattled into chests. Anxious haste or determined greed has wrapped our treasures in rags and wood and buried them deep or hidden them sneakily…..

Hoards: a hidden history of ancient Britain is nearing the end of its visit to Buxton Museum and Art Gallery. If you haven’t been yet, you only have until 16^th June to rush in and soak up some of that gleaming golden light or take in the fascinating tales behind the finds

Pirate Nancy (see below)

the Bee-guarded box of the Horrible Pirate nancy with her hover-board go-cart....

Our events programme is reaching its end as well.

Still to come

Thursday 6 June,

Managing modern hoards!

Buxton Museum, 12noon–4pm

Drop into the Museum to get information on handling household finances and managing debt from the money advisors at Citizens Advice Derbyshire District. 

a certaing piggy quality to the hoarding of hoards....

Sunday June 9^th Pottery Piggy Banks with Sue Blatherwick at Dove Valley Centre: this event is now sold out but you could keep an eye on the Eventbrite list (or let me know if you could take a last minute place: creepingtoad@btinternet.com)

Work with potter Sue to design and make your very own pottery piggy bank. Sticky clay and messy hands, fascinating colours and exciting shapes, our Piggies will add an extra delight to our season of Hoards
Venue: Dove Valley Centre, Longnor
Places: free but must be booked in AdvanceBook at: www.buxtonmuseum.eventbrite.co.uk

 

Torcs from the Leekfrith Hoard

Wednesday June 12^th

Talk: Talking Torcs: the Leekfrith Hoard

Buxton Museum, 11 – 12

Teresa Gilmore, Finds Liaison Officer for Staffordshire & the West Midlands, will talk about this fascinating collection of Iron Age gold jewellery found in 2017 in the Staffordshire Moorlands.

No booking needed – just come along and settle down for an interesting hour!

Saturday June 15^th

Talk: The Goldfield - Iron Age Hoards from Snettisham, Norfolk

Buxton Museum, 15.00 – 16.00

Julia Farley from the British Museum is visiting Buxton to talk about the spectacular Snettisham Hoards:

For over 60 years spectacular discoveries have been made at Snettisham, northwest Norfolk. At least 12 separate hoards of artefacts including torcs, coins, rings, bracelets and ingots have been discovered. Collectively they are known as the ‘Snettisham Treasure’ and form the largest deposit of gold, silver and bronze artefacts dating from the Iron Age found in Europe.

flip a coin....

Make your own pottery piggy bank!

Pottery Piggies!

make your own!

Sunday 9th June

JUST A FEW PLACES LEFT!

From ancient oracular pigs to to the terrible Twrch Twyth, from engimatic carved Pictish boars to hogsback Viking tombs, pigs lie in the history and mythology of this land. You might sing the Boar's Head Carol at Midwinter or simply enjoy the gruntling of piglets, but we hope that pigs matter to you as well. Now, join us for a bit of pig-making.....

Work with potter Sue Blatherwick to design and make your very own pottery piggy bank. Sticky clay and messy hands, fascinating colours and exciting shapes, our Piggies will add an extra delight to our season of Hoards

Venue: Dove Valley Centre, Longnor

Places: free but must be booked in advance

Book at: Pottery Piggy Banks

We'll be thinking about ways of keeping treasures safe, holding, hoarding, hiding them until.....Will you make a smiling cheerful little pig filling up happily with stray 5ps? Or will your Piggy be a blundering Boar, all bristles and tusks and ready to defend your pennies as fiercely as any dragon? Sticky clay and messy hands, fascinating colours and exciting shapes, our Piggies will add an extra delight to our season of Hoards.

Date: Sunday 9th June 2019

Venue: Dove Valley Centre, Longnor

Times: 11.00 - 16.00 - you will need to bring a packed lunch

Further details etc will be confirmed through eventbrite nearer the time

This workshop is part of the Museum's public event programme to accompany "Hoards: a hidden history of ancient Britain"

Peeling Back the Layers

Dove Valley Centre - we are anticipating sunshine!

 Once upon a time 

in the Upper Dove Valley…

Peeling Back The Layers

Saturday June 25th

 Dove Valley Centre

11am – 4pm

 will we find a long house? a square?

As the shovels swing and the trowel dig and careful fingers lift on this exciting community archaeology project in the Upper Dove Valley, Buxton Museum’s Collections in the Landscape project will be at the Open Day in this beautiful dale

With the shapes of houses emerging in the field and (hopefully) artefacts being unearthed, our artist and event leader Gordon MacLellan from Creeping Toad will be there to help on speculation:

what are we finding?

what was here?

what could it have looked like…

…visitors will be encouraged to look at finds

to study those tempting shapes in the field

to consider the survey results

and to wonder at change: in 1000 years have the hills changed? how has the dale altered, would those older people still recognise the hills of their home

a changed landscape?

Mixing information with imagination, Gordon will help people build their own house and farm models to add to our imagined settlement – and then to take home afterwards

Over the afternoon we will gradually build the ancient (or not so ancient) settlement of Under Whitle

Peeling Back the Layers is a hands-on educational project, run by the Tudor Farming Interpretation Group (TFIG).  A wide range of people are investigating the history and archaeology of Whitle, Sheen and the surrounding landscape.  Groups and individuals are joining together with the primary and secondary schools, young archaeologists, local history enthusiasts and mental health groups in this fascinating exploration of our local heritage.

roundhouses? probably not

This event is free and materials or tools are provided.

No booking is needed, just come to the Centre, wonder at the view as you stroll down into the valley and join us for an afternoon enjoying uncertainty, discovery and speculation 


Finding us: the event is at the Dove Valley Centre, on the road between Longnor and Sheen, postcode, SK17 0PR