Woodland Stories Used
Harry’s Hazelnut by Ruth Parsons
Explains the life-cycle, uses and wildlife of Hazel.
Sally Willow by Ruth Parsons
Explains the life-cycle, properties and process of using of basket willow.
Maurice Mouse’s New Home by Ruth Parsons
Looks at habitats and requirements for life and encourages woodland exploration.
Oliver Finds his Way by Phyllis Root
A lovely woodland journey by a lost bear.
Itchy Bear by Neil Griffiths
Exploring a wood.
Woodland Themes Stories can be created to explain.
Plant Growth.
Habitats.
Plant reproduction.
Camouflage.
Food Chains and Webs.
Journeys.
Counting and Sorting.
Woodland management.
Woodland Crafts.
And many more, please ask.
Woodland Learning
Storytelling
Stories are a great leveler. Most people really enjoy them, whatever their age. Stories can be used to teach people about woodlands and to encourage them to visit and participate in story based activities. By using stories we can breakdown barriers, explain things in a non-threatening way and make woodlands a magical place.
Services Offered by Woodland Learning
Ruth Parsons can make up age appropriate stories to illustrate a certain point or explain something or to encourage a certain group to enjoy and use a wood. I can use the Harry’s Hazelnut story I wrote and was published. I also use many stories by other authors. I can create a comfortable story telling place in a wood and involve people in the telling of a story or show them how to do it themselves. I charge £200.00 a day for storytelling workshops or courses. Please contact me to discuss what you would like. See Events page for forthcoming storytelling courses and events.
Examples
Harry’s Hazelnut
At Goddard Park Primary School a group of parents and grandparents wanted to involve the children in using and caring for the school wood. I worked with them over the course of a year to make a story sack and to share it with all the children in the school.
Story sacks are cloth bags containing a fiction book and toy characters and scenery to help illustrate the story. There is also a CD of the story, a related non-fiction book, a game, parents guide, sometimes a teaching pack. Everyone loves them but they are especially good for parents who have limited reading skills and those without English as a first language so they can share books with their children.
We decided to make a story sack. I wrote a story called Harry’s Hazelnut about a little boy who 
finds a nut on the way to school. He plants it and watches it grow. The story then goes on to explain about how hazel trees in a wood are managed and the produce that can be made from them. I also wrote the teaching pack to go with the story.
The parents group designed and made all the props and a wall hanging for scenery and a sack to put it in. To go along with this we ran a few family days with activities based on the story in the school wood. We made bird boxes and walking sticks, created habitats and played games, and ate hazelnut biscuits. Of course, we also told the Harry’s Hazelnut story out in the wood. The days were very popular. We also took the story to assemblies and did projects with every class. The parents and grandparents all received well earned Open College Network qualifications and some have gone on to train to be Forest School Leaders. The school has embraced the Forest School ethos and has trained staff, improved the wood and use it very often.
Storysacks Ltd. Really liked the story and decided to publish the book and produce a commercial version of the story sack. I have led lots of workshops for other schools and teacher groups based on the story sack. I wrote the story when I was employed by the Great Western Community Forest and they own the copyright. Royalties go back into Swindon Schools for Forest Education projects.
Mountford Manor Woodland Learning Literacy Project
The year long Woodland Learning project at Mountford Manor School has a literacy base. Whatever story or writing the children are doing in literacy we plan a woodland lesson around it. 
We have done lots of story journeys and sequencing. My favourite story workshop has been working with the children to invent characters, making masks for the characters then making up stories in groups and performing on a stage in the woods. It was a perfect way to spend a sunny afternoon. ( Picture on page 1)
Roves Farm Storytelling Course
Roves Farm was the venue for a story telling course for teachers and Forest School Leaders in the summer of 2006.
The course was run in partnership with Neil Griffiths of Storysacks Ltd. and A Corner to Learn. In the morning we looked at some lovely books and practiced the best ways to read from them to children, involving them and creating an appropriate atmosphere. In the afternoon 
we created storytelling spaces in the farm wood and told stories, read poems and did some related practical activities including making clay monstor faces on trees! The afternoon finished with an ideas exchange over hot chocolate brewed on an open fire.