About us
Who we are
Expressive Explorers was founded in 2017 by Becky Pugh to deliver storytelling workshops with practical activities and resources to nursery settings. Having experienced how much her own children enjoyed trips to the theatre, singing and enjoying stories together when they were young, she wanted to develop a programme that would enable more children to benefit from this enrichment from an early age.
The team at Expressive Explorers are all trained performing artists and they use their skills to bring the stories to life for the children. However, Becky didn’t want the children just to receive one off storytelling workshops, but for the workshops to leave a legacy of good practice in the settings Expressive Explorers visit. The aim is to give practitioners and teachers new ideas of ways to engage the children in stories.
Storytelling workshops with drama, song and movement
Encouraging the children to use actions and mime during the story helps them remember, as physicalising aids memory. Shyer children will often feel more confident in speaking once they have participated in a nonverbal way. Every story has a song that runs through it. These have been written to well known tunes, so staff and children can pick them up quickly. The songs are unaccompanied so there is no need for a backing track. Every song has simple actions to help the children remember the words, although some will prefer to join in with the actions if they are not yet confident enough to sing. As an extension activity, children could create their own accompaniment using percussion instruments or making their own shakers.
Linking to the visual arts
Each story has ideas for visual arts activities that include examples of the following and more:
- Mark making: Letting children experiment with a variety of materials, exploring textures and colours whilst developing their fine motor skills. To help produce a piece of work for children to take home we also provide a paper frame that has a cut-out shape linked to the story.
- Playdough: Each story has a different way for children to make things linked to the story using playdough
- Sticking and cutting: Ideas for making a display linked to the story for their room.
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What we do
Expressive Explorers deliver storytelling workshop based training in Private Day Nurseries, Pre-Schools, Playgroups and Schools. Our training not only benefits the children who participate, but also their practitioners/teachers and planning is closely linked to the Early Years and Foundation Stage statutory framework with activities that involve visual arts, singing, movement and drama.
Expressive Explorers storytelling workshops are designed so your staff take an active role in the delivery and will introduce them to our active story telling techniques. It is hands on training with the children they know, giving them the opportunity to see them engage in a way they may not have done before. Experiencing their children’s reaction to the workshop is often much stronger way to ensure they use the techniques in the future, rather than them attending a training course and not having the confidence to put what they have learnt into practice on their return. Our professional Storytellers/Trainers are all experienced in delivering in Early Years settings; they demonstrate through facial expression, mime, movement and song how inclusive delivery can be to children of all abilities. Delivery is very active and engaging and can be tailored to work as a simple story and song exercise for 0-2’s through to a fully interactive session for ages 2 up. Over time your staff will be able to transfer our techniques to other stories.
We take away the story book and replace it with a high quality, purpose designed and easy to use resource pack, which includes a resource book, story map, laser cut picture frames and the tools required to accompany each story workshop. The comprehensive resource packs enable practitioners and teachers to develop new ideas for linking a story to many areas of the curriculum and bringing the story to life - the children will also create artwork that can be used to decorate the setting and for them to take home. Our Story Maps give your staff an easy to follow visual prompt to help them act out the story with the children and our resource books are designed to help you develop the story further. For example, you could work towards a short performance of the story that could be shared with parents either at the end of the day or by video.
Our Team
The Expressive Explorers team are passionate about engaging children in stories from an early age. We aim to make the exploration of stories accessible and engaging for all children.
Lauren Lister
Art Resources & Illustrations
As an artist and children's book illustrator Lauren has designed and illustrated the Story Maps and written the art resources for us. Lauren's work is inspired by the classic fairytales she was told as a child. Lauren also has her own company Bobble Red Press.