Posted by simon at June 26, 2013 12:15 PM inFinger Lakes Land Trust Launches Story Walk in Ellis Hollow
The Finger Lakes Land Trust is launching its first "story walk" on Friday, June 28th at 10:00 AM at the Ellis Hollow Nature Preserve in Dryden. Designed to promote physical fitness and a love of reading by creating opportunities for children and their caregivers to experience reading outdoors, the story walk will be free and open to the public.
The Land Trust's first walk will center on the classic story "Just a Dream" by Chris Van Allsburg. The book's pages will be individually laminated, grouped into small sections, and then placed along the trail at the Land Trust's Ellis Hollow Nature Preserve. Throughout the summer, children and their caregivers will be able to take free, self-guided walking and reading adventures through the fern-carpeted forests of the preserve.
To generate excitement, the Land Trust will host a "kick off" walk led by Valerie Akers, a local educator, who will take the first group of children and their families through the preserve, stopping along the path to read "Just a Dream." The first 30 families who attend the kickoff walk will receive a copy of the book to bring home.
The story walk is intended bring nature and reading together in a no-pressure setting where children and their caregivers can take an engaging stroll through a community resource. The Land Trust believes that many children will explore the preserve, eager to get to the next few pages of the book as they walk under hemlock trees just a little farther than they have gone before.
The Ellis Hollow Nature Preserve is just off Ellis Hollow Creek Rd in the Town of Dryden.
Funding to launch the initial story walk project was generously granted by the Friends of the Library. The Land Trust also received help from the Family Reading Partnership.
More information is available at www.fllt.org.