Oral storytelling is one of the foundations of children’s development of language and literacy. It’s also one of our foundation practices at Birdwings – plus everyone loves a story! Storytelling for us happens in so many different ways.

We share planned stories which often have props and scenery specially prepared. These stories we have written ourselves, or we retell from known stories and books that we love. They are chosen to celebrate seasonal change, to share cultural knowledge to acknowledge current interests of the children, explore relevant therapeutic themes or to purposefully share knowledge of local nature.

The children and Narell discovered prawns in the creek, so in this photo Narell is sharing the story of “Buding biba gawunga: Buding the deadly little prawn” by Sandra Delaney, a Quandamooka descendant. This story affirms and celebrates their discovery, adds new information about the behaviour and needs of freshwater prawns and shares their cultural signficance. The book is also written in Jandai language so we can have discussion about language too. Narell retold it with cloths for scenery and natural props for the characters. The children instantly began interacting with the props when the story was finished. Prop stories are a wonderful way to model the creative use of loose parts.

Jennifer often uses minimal props and just body gestures and facial expressions. This helps children develop listening skills, the ability to hold abstract pictures in their mind and to read body language. Here, Jennifer is sharing a Dreamtime story from northern NSW about the first fire. A scene set with fabric, and sticks were the only props. There were more cloths to represent flames, but these lay forgotten during the re-telling. As you can see from the engagement, this didn’t matter at all …

The stories come up again in conversations as we recall details in our daily work. Spontaneous storytelling frequently occurs along the track. These might be shared experiences told and retold while we walk, playful re-enactments when we stop to rest or eat. Very often, when we enter a familiar part of the track we will tell the story of what happened here last, or of what we saw, and then continue to share with each other what we learned, and what we’ve discovered since.

And so stories become a part of our living relationships with each other and with our surroundings. This is the basis of Ecological Storytelling.

Birdwings offer training in Ecological Storytelling and nature mentoring. Check our schedule to see if there is training coming up or contact us to book a workshop for your centre or conference.