{"id":562,"date":"2023-12-05T01:23:14","date_gmt":"2023-12-05T01:23:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/ea\/tapteamwebsitemain2019\/?p=562"},"modified":"2024-05-03T10:05:12","modified_gmt":"2024-05-03T10:05:12","slug":"story-telling-and-outdoor-learning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/ea\/tapteamwebsitemain2019\/2023\/12\/05\/story-telling-and-outdoor-learning\/","title":{"rendered":"Story telling and Outdoor Learning"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I really do believe in the power of stories. They help us to connect, feel, learn and remember. Research shows us that listening to and telling our own stories can reduces stress, boost listening skills, foster imagination, increases empathy and memory retention (Haigh & Hardy, 2011). Stories have shared important information for generations. We find it easier to remember information told in a story than in a list of facts.<\/div>\n
Stories Help Us To Connect to Ourselves and Others.<\/b><\/h5>\n
Stories have been shown to connect and bring people together as part of a shared experience. Hasson (2016) monitored peoples brain activity while they were told a story together. While the participants showed different activity before the story began, after it started their brain activity became aligned.<\/div>\n
Stories are a natural part of our lives. We tell stories before, during and after our experiences because they help us make sense of the world. According to Wilson only cognitive processes underlying stories and music come naturally to humans, he went on to say \u201cWe all live by narrative, every day and every minute of our lives.\u201d so it\u2019s no surprise that children tell stories, and that they use stories to shape their play.<\/div>\n
Storytelling in the outdoors follows a Waldorf tradition of oral narration, building upon children\u2019s imagination, curiosity and wonder.<\/div>\n
Here are some ideas to help you on your outdoor storytelling journey\u2026<\/div>\n
Loose Parts
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Provocation tables can be created in order to stimulate story telling opportunities, based upon books that may have shared together indoors or following a theme of learning
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Loose parts that can be left out in the elements are preferable for outdoor story telling than things that need to be transported in and out with the children. Wood log slices, pine cones, shells and acorns are easy to source and keep outdoors. Wood log slices can stack, roll and provide a base plate for creative thinking outdoors.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Journey Sticks<\/h5>\n<\/div>\n
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Aboriginal people in Australia used journey sticks to be able to recount their journeys to their families upon their return. \u00a0They found a large walking stick, collected materials found along the way, and tied them to the stick in chronological order. \u00a0Native Americans also used this method by decorating sticks to recount their journeys and tell about their travels.<\/div>\n
Journey sticks are particularly effective when going on a walk or exploration. Children have the opportunity to collect a variety of natural objects which they can then refer to at the end of the day to recount their earlier experiences. As children are recounting, they can be encouraged to think about the sights\/sounds and senses they had during that part of the journey, eg \u2018when you found the feather, do you remember what you thought it might have come from?\u2019 \u00a0or \u2018 when you found the leaf, what happened to the weather?\u2019 \u2018 it started raining!\u2019<\/div>\n

\nStory Stones<\/b><\/div>\n
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Story stones are a great way to extend children\u2019s understanding of an existing story they might have shared previously. They are also good for re-telling familiar fairy tales or to prompt children to create their own stories.<\/div>\n
Mud Kitchen<\/b><\/h5>\n
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Mud kitchens are a place where story telling can be a natural part of spontaneous play. Children can engage in a multi-sensory experience of adding things like herbs, stones and mud in order to create food and various other concoctions. In this setting, children naturally want to create their own narratives based upon their personal experiences and interests. This type of setting offers the adult excellent opportunities to observe children\u2019s language and interpersonal skills as they weave their story telling into their imaginative play.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Den building<\/b><\/h5>\n

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Providing children with a variety of loose parts such as wood stumps, tarp, material, large pegs and boxes can be enough to stimulate a world of imagination. Children are the creators of their own setting and become characters in their own story. Building children\u2019s experiences and understanding in real life will then lay the foundations for them to be able to go on to more easily translate these moments into written narrative at a later time.
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\nReading Stories Outdoors<\/b><\/p>\n

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As an author of 2 children\u2019s books which are both based on exploring and enjoying nature, I cannot recommend sharing a story with children enough. \u00a0Books can be used outdoors at any time (well\u2026weather dependent!). Where possible, I recommend trying to create a cosy corner in the outdoor area which can provide a quiet space for children to go and look at books and explore stories independently or as a group.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"\"Reading to children can also be incorporated into woodland days, as a way to engage and introduce children in a theme of learning or as a calming \u2018closing\u2019 experience of a session.<\/p>\n

by Hannah Willow<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Haigh C., Hardy P., Tell me a story\u2013A conceptual exploration of storytelling in healthcare education. Nurse Educ. Today<\/i> 31<\/b>, 408\u2013411 (2011).<\/div>\n
Wilson, E. (2001) On Human Nature. Harvard University Press<\/div>\n

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I really do believe in the power of stories. They help us to connect, feel, learn and remember. Research shows us that listening to and telling our own stories can reduces stress, boost listening skills, foster imagination, increases empathy and memory retention (Haigh & Hardy, 2011). Stories have shared important information for generations. We find … Continue reading Story telling and Outdoor Learning<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17351,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/ea\/tapteamwebsitemain2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/ea\/tapteamwebsitemain2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/ea\/tapteamwebsitemain2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/ea\/tapteamwebsitemain2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17351"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/ea\/tapteamwebsitemain2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=562"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/ea\/tapteamwebsitemain2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":626,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/ea\/tapteamwebsitemain2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562\/revisions\/626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/ea\/tapteamwebsitemain2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/ea\/tapteamwebsitemain2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.glowscotland.org.uk\/ea\/tapteamwebsitemain2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}