Dairy Day Trip

All summer we have been telling you that Reading is So Delicious. Hopefully you have participated in some of our tasty food-themed programs and are completing your Reading Patch Bingo card.

Summer is the perfect time to explore local sources of our delicious food, ice cream being one of my favorites. An "edutaining" place to spend the day is Fair Oaks Farms in northwest Indiana. The dairy is home to thousands of cows that are milked three times each day. During the milking process, 72 cows at a time ride a milking carousel. Who would have thought cows would enjoy riding a merry-go-round!

While you are at the dairy you can see how cheese and ice cream are made, enjoy the outdoor play center, and check out the indoor exhibits. You can even watch a baby calf being born in the birthing barn.

Of course the library has some great books to help you get ready for your trip.

Grass to Milk by Julie Murray explains how milk gets from the farm to your table.

If you prefer to stay close to home, check out Ben & Jerry: Ice Cream Manufacturers by Joanne Mattern. After you finish reading, you will have a good excuse to continue your research by trying Chocolate Therapy (one of Ben & Jerry's new flavors).

"Peanuts... Get Your Peanuts!!!"

For most people, the thought of a man walking up and down stairs screaming this at the top of his lungs brings back fond memories of family trips to ball games and circuses, but for some parents, it can be a nightmare.

Between 4 and 8% of children have allergic reactions to foods, but of all of them, the most dangerous is a peanut allergy, which afflicts 1% of children.  While that might sound like a lot of children, parents can sometimes feel isolated by their child's condition and it can cause a fear of public places if the allergy is severe.  If you, like many other parents, have a child in your family with a peanut allergy, the website www.peanutallergy.com is a great resource for information including prevention, treatments, and foods to avoid as well as food brands that are 100% peanut free.

Maple syrup, Catching Fire

What do maple syrup and Catching Fire have in common? Of course, it is the spile. What is a spile, you ask? It is a very important tool if you want to make maple syrup, and it is also a life-saving tool in Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins. More precisely it is a spout used to get sap from trees. You can find a great picture of a metal spile in From Maple Trees to Maple Syrup.


A fascinating place to visit to learn about spiles is the Sugar Bush Fair at the Spring Valley Nature Center in Schaumburg. This very popular event takes place Saturday, March 20 and Sunday, March 21 from 9 a.m. to noon. Demonstrations and hands-on activities give lots of opportunity to see different types of spiles. Visitors are also introduced to methods of sap collecting and syrup production. General admission is free. Tickets for a pancake breakfast with real maple syrup are available to purchase. Breakfast is held under a tent, so dress for outdoor weather.


If you have a teenager who isn't anxious to be seen in public with his/her family, you might be able to entice them to go along with you by casually mentioning the connection to Catching Fire, the second book in the wildly popular Hunger Games trilogy. In this action-packed science fiction thriller, Katniss uses the gift of a spile to try to survive in the arena. Be warned, there is a cliff-hanger ending and the third book, Mockingjay, doesn't come out until August.

I hope these ideas help you have a sweet time with your child. (Don't tell your teenager I said that.)

Getting you to. . .Bronzeville

One of the museums featured in our Museum Adventure Pass program is the Bronzeville Children's Museum. My family visited there recently to check it out. While the museum is more structured than many other children's museums, we thoroughly enjoyed our trip. We learned lots about Bronzeville, a neighborhood in Chicago where African-Americans settled after coming from the South. Tours of the exhibits are designed for children ages 3 to 9, and include video presentations, crafts, and hands-on activities. The tours are offered on the hour, so you should schedule your trip accordingly. Be sure to get travel directions before you go because the museum is actually located a little south of the Bronzeville neighborhood.

After you finish your museum visit, you can head north to visit Bronzeville for some great soul food. My family and I enjoyed Chicago's Home of Chicken and Waffles, 3947 S. Martin Luther King Drive. The wait for a table can be quite long, so we felt lucky to be seated after only 20 minutes. Eating fried chicken and waffles together was a unique sweet and salty experience. Even if your children aren't adventurous eaters, they will enjoy the mac & cheese. You may even be able to persuade them to try some excellent collard greens or red beans & rice.

After your trip, come to the library for some great books to check out by or about African-Americans.

This year's Caldecott Award winner, The Lion & the Mouse is a beautiful, wordless book by Jerry Pinkney.


We Are the Ship: the Story of Negro League Baseball is a fascinating history of Negro League baseball from the 1920's through 1947.





More Tales of Uncle Remus is a lively book of trickster stories about Brer Rabbit that is fun for families to read aloud together.


Savion!: My Life in Tap is an autobiography by Savion Glover, a dancer and choreographer who has appeared regularly on Sesame Street and Broadway.


I hope you have a chance to celebrate Black History Month with some great books and a trip to Bronzeville.

Getting You There--India

How old do you think India is? I was surprised to learn that India became a democratic republic only 60 years ago. Today, January 26, is Republic Day, a national holiday celebrating the adoption of the Indian constitution. If you can't get to New Delhi for the parade, you can experience India here in our own neighborhood.

Food is an important part of travel, so begin your trip at Cuisine of India, 2348 S. Elmhurst Road, Mt. Prospect. This restaurant offers a lunch buffet daily, so you can try lots of different foods to decide what you like best. Warning: Indian food can be very spicy, so start with small bites.

If you taste something you want to make yourself, go next door to Ambica or down the street to Shreeji Gocers, 1187 S. Elmhurst Road, Des Plaines to shop for ingredients. During my recent visit I bought roti chapati, a delicious flat bread that you can cook in about 2 minutes. Children will love watching it puff up on the stove.

If you want to venture further from home, there are lots of restaurants and shops on Devon Avenue in Chicago.

When you return from your trip, try reading some great books from the library. The Brave Little Parrot is a beautiful introduction to traditional jataka tales.

Indian Children's Favourite Stories is a delightful collection of eight traditional stories that will help you learn about the culture and history of a diverse country.

Homeless Bird is an award-winning book for older children about a 13-year-old girl and her arranged marriage.

Gujarati is one of 16 major languages spoken in India. Check out the English-Gujarati version of The Very Hungry Caterpillar to see what Gujarati script looks like.

I hope you enjoy your trip to India. Send us a postcard!

Kitchen Chemistry

On a school day off this week, 25 third through fifth graders participated in our 1st ever Hands-On Science program applying the scientific method to learn about science in the kitchen! But don't be fooled- having your kitchen as a laboratory is a lot of fun and a great way to enjoy exploring science! Here are two projects we did that you can try at home and consume the results!

How to make ice cream without a freezer?
Materials:
1 gallon size zip-loc bag
1 quart size zip-log bag
1 T sugar
1/2 t vanilla extract
1/2 cup whole milk or cream
6 T rock salt (kosher salt)
2 cups of ice
Procedure:
Place sugar, vanilla and milk in the quart size bag. Tightly seal the bag. Place the bag into the gallon size bag and pack with ice until it is half full. Pour the salt onto the ice and tightly seal. Check for any leaks. Shake the bags for 5- 10 minutes until the ingredients in the small bag are softly frozen. Remove the small bag and empty into a bowl. Enjoy!
How Does it Work?:
Just like we use salt on the roads in winter, salt causes ice to melt. Water normally freezes at 32 degrees F, but when salt is added, the freezing point of water becomes lower. Because the freezing point of milk is lower than of ice, by lowering the temperature around the milk, we are able to create an environment in which the temperature is lower than 32 degress and in which the milk mixture can freeze into ice cream.

How to carbonate homemade root beer?
Materials:
large plastic container, wooden spoon, plastic laddle, sacle, think rubber/latex gloves
2 gallons of cold water
2 lbs of sugar
2 lbs. of dry ice (HANDLE WITH CARE:dry ice is so cold it can cause burns-wear gloves if directly handling it)
2 oz. of root beer extract
Procedure:
Pour 2 gallons of water into container and add sugar and stir until sugar is dissolved. Add root bear extract and stir again. Put on the gloves and add dry ice in chunks one at a time, stirring. Cover loosely and stir occasionally for 1/2 hour until all dry ice has turned into gas.
How Does it Work?:
Dry ice is solid carbon dioxide. The dry ice changes from a solid phase straight into a gas phase of carbon dioxide under standard pressure and temperature. This change from a solid to gas phase is called sublimation because it skips the liquid phase (just like boiling is the change from a liquid to gas phase). When dry ice is placed in water, sublimation accelerates and the dry ice vaporizes into a clear colorless gas more quickly than in air (you will see the cardon dioxide gas bubbles slow down as the temperature of the water cools). The white vapor/fog is carbon dioxide gas and water vapor which is the water in the air that is condensing (as it cools from the dry ice) into tiny droplets.

For additional ideas, try these activities from Scholastic's The Magic School Bus, each focusing on a different science concept and the PBS show, Zoom, that features a virtual kitchen (no mess to clean up).

Guten Tag! Sprechen Sie Deutsch?

If your answer to that question is "No, I don't speak German, but I would like to learn," there are some great resources in our community. Children who are interested in instruction in the four language domains (reading, writing, speaking, and listening) may want to take classes at the the German Language School of the Danube Swabian Society, 625 Seegers Road, Des Plaines. Classes for children ages 4-14 begin Saturday, September 19.

If you want to try speaking German (and eating at the same time), visit Kuhn's Deli, 749 W. Golf Road, Des Plaines. The chicken schnitzel is one of my favorite sandwiches to eat there. I also like to take home the authentic German potato salad, but there are also lots of other grocery and deli items available for purchase.

The Library also has many resources for learning about German language and culture. Tell Me More is an online language learning resource that can help you build vocabulary, speaking, listening, reading and writing skills in German. The Golden Goose is a DVD based on a fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm that you can listen to in German. Want to pick up a dictionary? The German Picture Dictionary is exactly what the title implies. Each German word is accompanied by a translation, a simple sentence, and a colorful picture.

Ich muss jetzt gehen. Bis bald! (I have to go now. See you soon!)