Workshops and Events
I have experience delivering workshops, co-design projects, events and talks for a variety of age groups. I’m part of the Scottish Book Trust’s Live Literature Directory, offering schools workshops and tours inspired by my debut children’s book A Little World of Ants.
Alongside my illustration work, I’m a Freelance Educator for V&A Dundee, facilitating tours and design workshops for schools, families, under 5s and different community groups. Read more about it here!
Email caralouiserooney@gmail.com if you’d like to organise an event!
Workshops to choose from…
Here are some workshops I currently facilitate, for nurseries, libraries, museums and schools, inspired by my book A Little World of Ants. They aim to encourage people of different ages to look at places and creatures around them in playful ways. I can adapt these workshops to suit a variety of age groups and abilities. I also love to create bespoke workshops to suit particular events, venues or themes.
Ant Activities
Using the resources I designed for the launch of A Little World of Ants, during this workshop, participants can undergo a variety of ant related craft and design activities. Create a 3D ant, make a lift-the-flap home, complete an ant maze, collect creatures and decorate the plant world. These resources are often brought along to the other workshops I facilitate as a free takeaway, but also work well as a simpler workshop in combination with a reading.
They aim to be accessible introduction to beastie themed making, for people of all abilities to complete in different ways.
They’re also available to download for free here, and examples in use here.
Beastie Books
A zine making workshop, creating beastie books inspired by A Little World of Ants. The workshop begins with a reading, a bug inspiration hunt, before learning how to create their own small story inspired by creatures outside.
The workshop aims to be a first introduction to interactive stories, creating lift-the-flap pages and cutting holes to create a book to explore.
For more details about this workshop, here’s an example of it being run with the Maxwell Centre’s Holiday Club in Dundee.
Happy Habitats
This is a colourful collage workshop to create a playful home for a creature outside. After an interactive reading, explore outside for inspiration for returning to combine colourful papers, stickers and mixed media to construct your own three-dimensional creature home.
The workshop aims to be a fun and playful way to empathise with creatures outside, imagining where they might sleep, play, eat or explore.
For more details about this workshop, here’s an example of it being facilitated with the D’Arcy Thomson Zoology Museum, inspired by their creature collections.
Little Beasties
This workshop is for younger under 5s audiences, aimed as a first introduction to looking playfully at the world outside. The session begins with an interactive reading, making actions and noises of different insects.
Following this, children can go on an indoor or outdoor bug hunt. With the indoor bug hunt, I have some fabric props I created for sensory play, replicating the experience of exploring outside. There is also simple ant related crafts to get involved in for toddlers.
Here’s an example of an under 5s themed workshop with V&A Dundee.
Playful Maps
A workshop inspired by illustrated maps I have created in the past, in which participants can create their own maps of places they love, with collage and colour.
In the past, I have facilitated this workshop with high schools as an example of an illustration brief, with pupils creating their own map of the school, or of their walk to school.
The workshop aims to introduce pupils to the idea of making designs that not only accurately portray information, but show something more than a normal map can show. They can pinpoint places, people or feelings about particular places on the map in playful ways.
