Forest Fairy Tales – Story Telling in the woods
If you go down to the woods today – you’re in for a big surprise as you’ll be finding us story telling under a tree breaking away from the books and encouraging the imagination.
This month is National share a story Month and Jules Miller has joined with Forest Holidays to share some top tips for story telling in the woods.
As you may have seen we recently shared our Story Telling of We’re going on a Bear Hunt to celebrate 25 years of this iconic children’s book with variations ranging from “We’re going on a Dinosaur Hunt” to “We’re going on a dragon hunt”.
Collaborative Story Telling with Kids
I love mixing up stories and retelling my own versions to the kids however a fun way to get kids working together and creating stories is collaborative story telling.
It was always a favourite of mine whilst camping we would take turns to extend a ghost story around the camp fire, but you don’t have to restrict it to the camp fire take a stroll through the woods and create your own story with your children, if you only have 1 child then take turns within the family creating the story.
Our Collaborative Forest Fairy Tale
Inspired by these stories and the tips from Jules Miller (author of two fantastic books for kids) we headed to the woods and told a story as we went and it went like this…..
J: Once upon a time in a deep dark wood lived a mean fierce dragon
T: and a beautiful fairy princess with flowers in her hair.
J: The mean fierce dragon lived in a gloomy dark cave with spiders with purple eyes and 8 hairy legs
T: and the princess lived in a house in the top of the tree with daisies around the edge.The princess went for a walk
J: and met the dragon. She found out the dragon was mean cause he had a big huge splinter in his foot.
T: The princess pulled it out and the dragon wasn’t mean any more.
Collaborating on stories like this with friends of syblings can make for interesting and unique stories – remember to take either your phone to record, a pen and paper to write it down or just take it as an opportunity to make a hands free memory that you can recall in the future with your kids.
Looking for more ideas and inspiration then check out this review of Forest School Adventure an ideal book to inspire you.