Fairy tales in the forest...

May is National Share A Story Month and to help get the nation's creative juices flowing, Forest Holidays enlisted the help of Jules Miller, author of Ellie and the Toothfairy, to offer some tips on how to encourage your children to learn the art of storytelling.  

Lara loves to have a story read to her just before bedtime (and these days she also likes to read them to us as well) and in fact, just this week Forest Holidays sent us some fairy tale books so I have been reading Ellie and the Toothfairy together with Lara taking a turn to read a page before letting me take over for the next page.  However many books your child enjoys, the creativity and imagination needed to write your own stories is something that doesn't necessarily come naturally and Jules' tips are good ways of trying to offer your children opportunities to explore their creative side.

Image courtesy of Evgeni Dinev / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Forest Holidays and Jules Miller quite rightly point out that the outdoor world is a great source of inspiration.  We have been known to make stories up about the things that we see when we are out for a walk and a recent trip to The Vyne in Hampshire saw the girls exploring woodland dens looking for a princesses' dragon :-)

We used one of Jules Miller's tips to create our own fairy tale story together.  Jules recommends trying to create a whole story with a beginning, middle and an end all in 50 words or less.

One evening, instead of reading Lara a bedtime story, we decided to make our own fairy tale in the same way that we normally read - by taking turns. Lara and I each took it in turn to say a word and the story just sort of evolved as we spoke.  There were lots of giggles and in the end I was very impressed with the result so I wrote it down in her notebook so that we could remember it and re-live the smiles on another day.

So here is our Forest Holidays fairy tale - a joint effort!

Once upon a time there was a lovely princess called Ellen.  
She lived in a castle at the top of a hill.  
When Ellen looked from her window she saw a hot air balloon.  
The King said they should take a balloon ride so they visited a magical fairy kingdom.

Image courtesy of digital art / FreeDigitalPhotos.net