Herald Society Awards

Out fantastic storytelling and story acting project, Make Believe in East Renfrewshire (which is also known as Dragonfly in other local authorities), just missed out on an award at the inaugural Herald Society Awards.

Louise donned her glad rags and joined the team from East Renfrewshire Council at the ceremony in the Radisson Hotel last night.

We are delighted to have been on the shortlist and offer congratulations to all the excellent projects that won. More info here.

Hx

Make Believe award hopes

Our fantastic storytelling (and story acting) project for early years has been shortlisted for a Herald Society Award. Specifically Make Believe, our collaboration with East Renfrewshire Council will be honoured. This project which is called Dragonfly in other local authorities uses techniques developed by award winning and hugely inspirational kindergarten teacher, Vivian Paley.



Hx

Tall tales from tiny tots!

This morning I was in Neilsland Primary School delivering our Dragonfly storytelling project. It was my 3rd session with the P6/7 class and it was a very exciting one because today we were gathering stories from the P1 class.

To put you all in the picture, this storytelling project is normally delivered in nursery schools where the children will tell TAG tutors stories which are written down and then acted out as a group. However, in Neilsland Primary we are piloting a new element to this project. Instead of TAG tutors working directly with the tiny tots, we are actually training the P7 pupils to lead the storytelling sessions!
The P7s have already learned all the rules of the technique and were desperate to give it a go with the little ones. I took small groups of P7s at a time and they were each paired up with a P1 pupil. Lots of stories were then told and written down. It was a really lovely session and the P7 pupils were all really happy with the results. They found it a bit more difficult than they initially thought it would be, but are keen to continue the work over the next few weeks.

Here is a story that was told to a P7 pupil today (as it was told):

"Once they were a wolf that stole a baby and he took it to his house. The wolf gave the baby some toys then he fed the baby and put the baby to bed. The wolf jumped off the branch and he put the baby on the chute and he hurt his-self. The baby climbed up the chute and jumped out of the window."

How cute!

Ang x

Storytelling with Early Years

TAG has been working on a storytelling project called Dragonfly for the past year with nurseries in East Renfrewshire*, South Lanarkshire and the Gorbals. The project encourages young children aged 3-5 years to tell their own stories and also to act out each others stories.

The children really grow in confidence and even shy children find the sessions great fun. The project allows every child to have a voice within the classroom.

The nurseries taking part this term in East Renfrewshire are:

• Thornliebank nursery class
• Calderwood Lodge nursery class
  
• Carolside nursery class

We are also working in Neilsland Primary school in Hamilton this term. We will be training the P7 pupils in the storytelling technique so that they will eventually lead the sessions themselves. This will ensure the long term sustainability of the project even after TAG's involvement has ended.

I will post some of the newest stories that the children have told. They are so cute! In the mean time you can read some of the older stories here.

Ang x

* Our Dragonfly project in East Renfrewshire is called Make Believe.