​Interactive Family Story Trail

DESCRIPTION
​This is an outdoor walking-story, co-authoring activity. In it, child-adult pairs walk along an outdoor trail of 6 illustrations in search of a story. Story Scouts will integrate submitted story responses into a co-created community story and publish it online.

DETAILS
At each illustration station, the child imagines a story the illustration sparks and speaks, writes, or draws the response. The adult uses the furnished sticky note to write down the child’s story, or takes a picture of the story prompt with a camera phone so the child can refer to it later to write, draw, or dictate a story with the adult. The child-adult team submits the story online to story@minnchildpress.org.

BIG IDEAS
  1. Walking in fresh air activates the imagination
  2. Stories are told visually through pictures and conceptually through written words
  3. Anyone can respond to a picture with an idea that becomes a story, and many people can join their ideas into a book.

PURPOSE
​To co-create an original children’s book with community members as a way of bonding through creativity and outdoor movement together. We encourage multigenerational pairs of adults and children to write, draw, and imagine together. They join with other community authoring/drawing teams by responding to story prompts placed on a short outdoor walking trail.

ACTIVITY
  • All wear masks and maintain 10 feet of distance from others along the Story Trail.
  • Prepare children by telling them they will walk to look at 6 different pictures, and they should speak out load, draw, or write, the ideas, activities, or characters the pictures spark in their imaginations.
  • If needed, adults either help write or record with their phones the children’s imagined stories.
  • Proceed to each station only when it is fully open with 10 feet of space between families and walkers.
  • At each station, look at the picture, and adults can help children imagine a story by speaking prompting sentences such as, “What does that creature look like to you?” “What are they doing?” “Wearing?” “Why?”  “What happens next? Draw it!”
  • Have the adult turn in sticky notes, or papers, with children’s response, or email them to story@minnchildpress.org—be sure to include the child’s and adult’s name and a way to contact the adult.
  • Stay tuned for announcement of the Great Integration of community notes, pictures, or recordings that youth Story Scouts and mentors will fashion into a single story with many authors and post online.

WRAP-UP RECAP
Many child-adult creative authoring teams will help co-create one giant story by walking the interactive Family Story Trail. They will stop at each of 6 pictures to interact with it by imagining what the story might be, as suggested by how or what the picture makes them feel or think of. Everyone’s contributions will be added together by youth and mentors into a single story, and published online.
AGES: Preschool-grade 4
TIME: 1 hour; highly flexible

MATERIALS NEEDED
  • Child/children with at least one adult or older teen who can write or has a phone camera
  • 4-6 weather-resistant printed enlargements (11”x17” or bigger) of original illustrations community members have drawn to serve as writing prompts for a children’s storybook
  • Family Story Trail walking path marked by 4-6 illustration stations that display enlarged storybook illustrations
  • Sticky-back notes or note paper at each illustration station, with pencils, for jotting the child’s response to the illustration; Or, the adult may take a photo and/or record a video of the child’s response
  • Internet access to send each child’s contribution to the evolving interactive story to story@minnchildpress.org for youth editors and mentors to integrate into a co-created community story made by children and their families walking along a story trail.