Amy Douglas - Storyteller

Amy Douglas
Storyteller

A Fairy Tale Feast

Stafford and District Early Years Forum

Thursday 6^th November 2003

On Thursday 6^th November Fiona Collins and I were invited to give a storytelling workshop to the Stafford and District Early Years Forum

This session was an exciting opportunity to play and have fun! Over the past few months we have been experimenting with new ideas in the way we approach storytelling to under fives and our biggest discovery has been the use of fruit and vegetables. With the state of the nation’s health and the English aversion to healthy eating constantly in the news we have been aiming to promote fruit and vegetables and how much fun they can be.

We have been positively encouraging children to play with their food and using edible puppets as the focus for stories. Popular examples include a sweet potato mouse finding a satsuma dropped in the woods and working out how to get into the sweet fruit; and a wide-mouth apple frog adventuring through the land discovering what animals / people are and what they eat.

During the evening we discussed the way children react to stories and how they interact during them. We explored the importance of ritual beginnings and endings and how to make a physical space to tell stories in.

Then it was time to play. 23 early years practitioners fell upon a rather large fruit bowl and set to work to create an amazing display of characters (giving us many more ideas in the process). There was a pumpkin cat with pomegranate ears, Surfing Spud, Lucy Leek the scary fairy, a courgette crocodile, a very cool Caribbean coconut and many more.

After a fashion parade filled with giggles and snippets of stories, we cleared up the mess, ate what was left of the apples and satsumas and we dispersed, happy with the promises that more young children would be exposed to the delights of fruit and vegetables!

RESULTS OF EVALUATION OF THE SESSION

	Very Useful	Useful	Limited Use	No Use
How useful did you find the session?	13	10	0	0
How would you rate the delivery?	20	3	0	0
How would you rate the content?	13	10	0	0
How would you rate the session materials?	13	10	0	0
Was it what you were expecting?	8	15	0	0

If it wasn’t what you were expecting please explain why:

It was more than I was expecting

Enjoyed session more than expecting

Wasn’t sure what to expect

Don’t hold with expectation when such a wide subject with no right or wrong

I was expecting it to be based on fairytales such as Red Riding Hood etc

I was expecting to be told a story from a book using props, voices etc

Use of vegetable/fruit instead of toys!

Storytelling presented in a different way

I expected it to be storytelling from books

What did you enjoy most about the session?

The story

It has fired my imagination

Too difficult to pick one thing

Interactive session instead of just listening

The delivery and participation

Very imaginative, informative, brilliant

Everything was easy listening and enjoyable

Additional Comments:

More of the same please

Finished too quickly!

Like to hear more

Needed more time

Would have liked some more of the instruments used in the session

A good session and very interesting

I think a whole day workshop would be excellent