What to expect

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Visits include an immersive storytelling experience:

• Introductory talk on woodlands and woodland animals / trees;

• Interactive reading of What The Oak Tree Sees and/or

       The Tree That Held The Moon;

• Q&A.

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Extend sessions with an immersive nature connection experience:

I can design tailored activities inspired by the stories, customised to link to events, curriculum, interests, learning objectives or your setting. Or choose from the following sessions:

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Creating Stories

These sessions are designed to stimulate imagination and creativity inspired by nature and the Hiddel Brock Wood books. 

Indoor session: Following a reading of ‘What The Oak Tree Sees’, I’ll guide the children through creating a new page for the book. Children will choose another woodland animal for their page then we’ll work through the process of researching, writing and illustrating their page; or

Outdoor session: Following a reading of ‘The Tree That Held The Moon’, we’ll explore a tree in your setting. As a group, we’ll discuss, create and tell the story of our tree from tiny seed to present day.

Nature Creativity

These sessions are designed to inspire sustainable play and creativity with natural resources. 

Following an interactive reading of ‘What The Oak Tree Sees’ and/or ‘The Tree That Held The Moon’, we’ll get crafty with natural resources e.g. making models of animals from the story, creating transient nature art, painting with natural resources, making botanical ink, making woodland games with natural resources.

Exploring Nature

These sessions are designed to help children learn about the nature in your setting / school grounds.

Following a reading of ‘What The Oak Tree Sees’ and/or ‘The Tree That Held The Moon’, we’ll compare your setting with the wood in the books and talk about the similarities and differences. We’ll then do a nature survey of your grounds, including things like a bug hunt, identifying plants, finding trees at different life cycle stages, measuring the age and height of a tree on site. 

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Nature Adventure

These sessions are designed to inspire children to get active in nature.

Following an energetic interactive reading of ‘What The Oak Tree Sees’ we’ll try to recreate how the different animals move. We’ll do an animal track trail around the site and play some nature inspired games. We’ll slow down the pace with a reading of ‘The Tree That Held The Moon’ then go on a moon phases trail around the site.

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Woodland Wellbeing 

These sessions are designed to meet the needs of children that would benefit from a peaceful and gentle connection with nature. Activities can be tailored to different needs and ages, but would ideally take place outside with small groups of up to around 10 children. They’re intended to be slower paced to reduce stress and create a feeling of contentment, whilst equipping children with tools to develop a mindful connection with nature.

I’ll talk through the inspiration for ‘The Tree That Held The Moon’ before reading the story. We’ll explore the ways that nature can inspire our creativity, use our senses to connect with the nature around us, and create some transient nature art.

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Story & Sketch Nature Trail

These sessions are ideal for settings that have a larger biodiverse area. Following an interactive reading of 'What The Oak Tree Sees' or 'The Tree That Held The Moon' we'll go on a tracking or tree trail. We'll have plenty of stops to observe, learn about and connect with the nature around us that will inspire some nature sketching. This session also works well as an introduction to nature journaling and there is an option for me to provide nature journals to use in the session and for children to take away.

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A Guide for Schools Organising an Author Visit from The Society of Authors can be found here.

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Festivals, visitor attractions and similar venues

Drop in storytelling and activities can work well for festivals and similar venues with large numbers of visitors. If you have a woodland setting, I recommend either a guided or self-guided story trail. Alternatively, I can do a series of pre-bookable sessions based on one of the above themes or a session tailored to your event. Please contact me to discuss your requirements.

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Society of Authors Festival Appearances Guidance for Festival Organisers can be found here

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Illustration Workshops

Ideal for older children and/or adults with an interest in nature illustration, these sessions involve discussing the books rather than an author reading. I'll share my approach to nature illustration and guide participants in creating their own botanical or nature illustrations using ink and watercolour. Participants/organisers can either provide their own art materials or I can source these. This will be an additional cost on top of my fees and will be available for participants to take away with them.