It's A Butterfly's Life

Summer is the time to appreciate…butterflies!  If you haven't seen many winged beauties yet, and want your kids to learn everything about them, take the family on a field trip to a butterfly garden!

Happily, there are four such special exhibits in the area this summer where, for a small admission fee, you can see hundreds of butterflies native to Illinois and the Midwest or even exotic ones from around the world. In Chicago, the Judy Istock Butterfly Haven at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum  maintains 500 butterflies of a dozen different species. On the North Shore, in the Butterflies and Blooms tent at the Chicago Botanic Garden you can watch exotic butterflies from Asia, South America, and Africa emerge from chrysalises to feed on flower nectar. In the western suburbs, the Butterflies! is an annual exhibit at Brookfield Zoo, and Peck Farm in Geneva, Illinois hosts the Butterfly House.

  (Reminder: Chicago Botanic Garden and Brookfield Zoo also offer discounted admission to the main park through our Museum Pass Program.)

But,where are two of the best blooming places to see butterflies flying free? Your neighborhood parks and your own backyard! Why not make it a summer and fall family project to build a simple butterfly feeder or plant new flowers to attract more butterflies, and watch them come to you! Finally, on sizzling hot days, why not cool off at the library, enjoying the amazing color photographs in our exciting butterfly books (J 595. 789).

How Does Your Garden Grow?

Mary, Mary, quite contrary, How does your garden grow?

Hopefully you don't know a child that is quite contrary (although I suspect on some days you might), but you probably do know one who would be interested in seeing how a garden grows. Many people have enjoyed looking at the snapdragon garden that children created here at the library this summer.

The Des Plaines Park District garden plots are a great place to see how a vegetable garden grows. There are dozens of small plots located north of Terrace School on Westgate Road. Each one is unique. I can't guarantee that you'll see plants

With silver bells and cockle shells, And pretty maids all in a row.

but you might see corn, tomatoes, eggplants, cucumbers, onions, fava beans, and lots of other plants that you may not even be able to name. At this time of year some of the vegetables are ready to harvest, so it's a great time to visit.

Who knows? You might be so interested that you will want to sign up for your own garden plot next year. In that case, it's not too early to start reading up on vegetable gardening (or Mother Goose rhymes). Here are some of my favorites.

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Storytime Sharing: You CAN raise a reader!

We love sharing age appropriate books, songs and rhymes from our storytimes. We strive to teach the six early literacy skills at storytimes and offer suggestions for how you can reinforce these skills at home.

This week in Toddler Storytime we learned about gardens, bugs and butterflies! We read the book, Bugs, Bugs, Bugs by Bob Barner which introduced us to daddy long legs, roly poly bugs and more. This book emphasized the pre-reading skill of vocabulary which is knowing the names of things (also of emotions, concepts, and ideas). Later on this skill will help your child understand what he/she read and to recognize words he/she tries to sound out.

We also read Big Yellow Sunflower by Frances Barry and were in awe with the surprise sunflower that appeared before our eyes as we turned the pages.

Songs can bring wonderful excitement, encourage engagement and memory retention. Try to sing to your child/children every day! Click on the song titles we've danced along to and view instructions and even listen to the song.

With a paper butterfly in our hand, we continued the fun by singing the rhyme,

Do you have a butterfly, a butterly, a butterfly?
Do you have a butterfly, then place it on your [body part]!

Paper butterflies flutered onto elbows, shoulders, foreheads, cheeks, wrists and ears!

We also learned that a seed needs rain and sunshine to grow and reinforced this concept through the rhyme, I'm a Little Seed from Tiny Tunes by Carole Peterson, with each child placing a raindrop on the flannelboard.

I'm a little seed in the dark, dark groud
Curl up on the floor on your knees, tuck arms in
Out comes the sun, yellow and round.
Sit up, outstretch atms above head
Down comes the cool rain, soft and slow,
Wiggle fingers as hands move downward like the rain
And UP! the seed begins to grow!
Sretch up tall or stand, hands reaching for the sky

Next came sining to Shoo Fly! from Dancing Feet vy Carole Peterson. That fly listened and left the storytime room!
We all enjoyed moving our colorful scarfs up and down and all around while listening to Flitter Flutter from The Second Line by Johnette Downing.

Our drop in Toddler Storytime continue on Thursdays at 10:30 and drop in Preschool Storytimes continue on Tuesdays at 10:30 for the month of April.