Happy National Take a Hike Day! This holiday is dedicated to the joy of spending time in nature. The American Hiking Society has excellent resources on how to celebrate National Hiking Day, including the benefits of hiking, how to plan a hike, and what to bring with you on a hike. There are so many great ways to encourage hiking at a public library. You can run a family hiking program, like this really fun one created by the Simsbury Public Library (CT). Or, if the weather is rainy and cold, you can create an indoor nature walk program, like I did at my library.
Creating the Indoor Nature Walk
I created my indoor nature walk as a program for preschoolers and their caregivers. First, I searched for images of different animals and their tracks. I printed out the pictures of the animals on large, 11 inch by 17 inch pieces of paper. I then found pictures of each animal’s tracks, and printed out multiple, smaller copies of each set. This way, I could make a path for the kids to follow as we walked from animal to animal. I also created a nature booklet in Canva for each child. The pictures inside the nature booklet were the same photos I used on the nature walk.
To make the walk feel special, I purchased a set of fun kids binoculars, so each child would have their own pair to keep. If you don’t want to buy binoculars, another great option is to have the kids make their own as a craft. With small cardboard paper tubes, paint or markers, and foam stickers, each child can create their own pair of binoculars.
Set-Up
The morning of the program, I created a trail of animal tracks that led from the program room through our juvenile stacks. After each set of animal tracks, I taped a picture of the animal that made them somewhere on the shelf. The path I made went through almost all of our department, so kids would have the chance to explore different shelves.
Running the Program
When my patrons arrived, the first thing we did was read the book Hiking Day by Anne Rockwell. As we read the book, we talked about all of the different animals found in the book. Then, I passed out a pair of binoculars to each child, and we went off on our walk!
As we followed our animal track trail, the kids and their caregivers had a great time looking for the different animals. As we found each animal on our nature walk, each child received a small picture of the animal. We found squirrels, wolves, bears, rabbits, and more! We also made different animals sounds as we found each animal.
After we found all of the animals, we went back to the program room. I gave each child their Nature Walk Booklet. They used glue to put the small animal pictures into the booklets, and decorated them with markers and stickers. Overall, this Indoor Nature Walk was a really fun program, and patrons asked if we could do it again in the future!
If you are looking for other fun ways to celebrate National Take a Hike Day, consider making a nature backpack like these at the Vancouver Community Library (WA), or by creating a scavenger hunt of nature items your patrons can find outside.
What is your library doing to celebrate National Take a Hike Day?
Ann Baillie (she/her/hers) is the Youth Services Assistant Manager at the Alsip-Merrionette Park Public Library in Alsip, Illinois. She is a past-manager of the Illinois Library Association’s Youth Services Forum. Her main interests are the connection between Readers’ Advisory and technology, and how libraries can use technology to better reach patrons.
This post addresses ALSC Core Competencies III. Programming Skills