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Welcome to Dupage Mamas! This blog is a place for Mamas to connect, share their experiences, and recommend great finds and ideas (or let us learn from your mistakes!) If you are raising kids in Dupage County, then we'd love to have you along for the adventure!
Showing posts with label library. Show all posts
Showing posts with label library. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

What adventures await

It started yesterday morning with a trip to the library to register for the summer reading program (side note: have you done this? Almost every library has one for kids of all ages and grown ups too! You get prizes for reading!!).

While there we checked out a book called From Cow to Ice Cream. A just loves learning about how things work and, well, so do I. Back at home we were pouring over the book when one particular page caught his eye. This picture, to be precise. I tried turning the page but he went back. "Read that part again" he said, pointing to the big mountain of raw sugar. It was pretty fascinating. I read it again. And again. And again. Every now and then we'd make it a few pages further in the book, but we always kept returning back to that mountain of sugar. And again. And again.

After awhile we really had exhausted all there was to see , so we turned to the internet. A happy hour or so was spent pouring over all the articles and pictures the internet could supply us on the topic of "raw sugar stored in warehouses." That's when we realized that our new sand table could easily be transformed into our very own raw sugar warehouse, complete with the necessary trucks and diggers. And so we did, spending another happy hour on our balcony with "sugar."

Even after it was time to come in, A spent the whole day using his hands and arms as cranes, transporting this and that, and talking constantly about raw sugar warehouses.

It was incredibly fun, even from my point of view. It kept us busy and entertained, imagining and learning. Plus you have to admit, a mountain of raw sugar stored in a warehouse and utilizing trucks and diggers is just pretty cool.

So today when we were out and about we just couldn't help but stop by the library to claim our prize for the first 12 books read...and pick up Cheese: From start to finish. I wonder what adventures we'll have today...


Have you run into any spontaneous adventures or good books lately?

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Thursday, April 9, 2009

A whole new world

The library is, to me, a standby location when the kids or I need to get out of the house. So today my boys and I walked to the library. They're a bit young to really dive into book-world, but they did enjoy playing in the kids play area they have there.

Living in our suburb is kind of like living at the UN, or maybe Sesame Street. Most residents are first generation immigrants, and there is tremendous diversity of dress, food, religion, smell, skin, and language. We're one of only two households in our building that speaks English as a first language. I love this about our neighborhood.

We spent our time at the library today playing and chatting with a Hindu family from India and a Muslim family from Africa. Later in the day we walked to the park where we hung out with "big kids" who were Indian, Asian, African, Latino, and yes one Caucasian, Americans.

I am so, so grateful for the opportunities I've had to study and teach about culture and diversity. I'm blown away by the opportunities I've had to travel around the world, the relationships I've made there, and how these things have changed me.

And I'm also grateful that my sons will grow up not needing to take these classes or these trips to understand culture. Different languages, skin color, customs, dress, thoughts and values will not be "foreign" to him. He is growing up in the midst of it.

Catherine is one of the co-founders of DupageMamas. When she's not over here you can find her blogging about life in Dupage County at her personal blog, everyday life as lyric poetry.

Do you have a story about life in Dupage County? We'd love to have you guest blog for us. Email us your post, ideas, pictures - whatever!

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