Adventure Begins in Your Library is the theme for the 2024 Summer Reading Program. There was a virtual symposium in December to get us thinking about ideas and activities we can do this summer. In one of the sessions they talked about 1000 Hours Outside. So we started reading the book Until the Streelights Come On by Ginny Yurich, founder of the 1000 Hours Outside Program. This book is amazing! (We’ll have it available soon to check out.) It is talking about all the ‘things’ that I’ve struggled with as a parent, as a person. How can I spend more time outside? How can I get my child to spend more time outside? How can we all get away from the technology that has seemed to invade our lives? How can I share it with my community? Why should the adventure only be in the summer?
The answer is 1000 Hours Outside. This book has given us ideas of ways to incorporate and encourage getting outside all year long. Ginny Yurich talks about it being okay to slow down and enjoy the small adventures that being outside takes you on. Being bored is okay, it can let our creativity out and be free to roam. Not being scheduled is okay, our brains need the downtime to decompress and reset.
An adventure can be as simple as making a lantern or grabbing a flashlight and going for a walk after dark. Or going into the backyard and collecting leaves for a craft project, then doing the project outside. Or having breakfast on the porch. Or read a book outside, on a swing-set, in a tree, on the patio, in a hammock, on a blanket in the backyard – endless options. Or camping in the backyard. Or cloud watching from the trampoline. Or watching the sunrise or sunset. We’ll soon have some books available for check out that give ideas for activities, 1000 Hours Outside: Activities to Match Screen Time with Green Time by Ginny Yurich and 1000 Hours Outside Activity Book: Low Tech Nature Activities in a High Tech World by Ginny Yurich.
They have several options for tracking sheets on their website or on their app, but you can always find your own way of tracking your time outside. You can stop by the library and we’ll help you print a tracker off, too. We’ll also share a picture of suggestions for getting your hours in each month for our winter weather. We might suggest a book and then an adventure related to the book. Really just getting outside and enjoying all that is available to us is the adventure.
Please watch our Facebook page, watch the Library News on our website, listen to KZZJ and KKWZ for updates and ideas. We want to hear where your adventure took you and your family.
Let the adventure begin!
Heart of America Library 