Our great summer: Science and reading

Mad Science at the Prairie Commons County Library.
Mad Science at the Prairie Commons County Library.

This summer our kids had more science and library activities than ever before.

In June, Vogt Elementary held a weeklong “Scary Science” camp at the school. Each day there was a scary theme, like making a mummy or eating bugs. The girls were surprisingly thrilled to be eating crickets, insisting that I try one. “They’re good, they’re really good!” they both kept exclaiming.

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New cardholder

Jadzia achieved a long-sought goal today: She got a card from the Ferguson Municipal Library.

The requirement for a child to receive a card is that he or she be able to print their own name legibly. Jadzia has been working on her writing on and off for a while now, and she can (oftentimes) write it pretty well.

Today she had to write it three times: Once on paper with a pencil, to prove to the librarian she could do it; another time on the application form; and finally on the card itself. She was very proud.

The first books she checked out for herself: Beauty and the Beast (a long version) and Peter and the Wolf. (She also checked out a book for Ludi about trains)

Search old St. Louis Post-Dispatch stories (1874-1922)

Hey, family history buffs and amateur genealogists in St. Louis County!

Get out your library card, and check out an awesome new resource:

“ProQuest’s Historical St. Louis Post-Dispatch database”:http://0-proquest.umi.com.iii.slcl.org/login?COPT=REJTPTc2ZWMmSU5UPTAmVkVSPTI=&clientId=43157

It includes searchable full text and full image articles from 1874 – 1922, though there are some gaps.

This is just one of many helpful databases you can search from the St. Louis County Library’s “genealogy databases page.”:http://www.slcl.org/databases/genealogy.htm All of these databases are free, but some (like Ancestry.com or Footnote.com) require you to search from within a library branch. But this Post-Dispatch database can be searched from home!

Continue reading “Search old St. Louis Post-Dispatch stories (1874-1922)”

Busy day

*My Saturday:*

*{line-height: 2em;} Walk to the Ferguson Farmer’s Market.

** Buy veggies & goat brats.

** Girls go to storytime, presented by Ferguson Municipal Library.

** Eat free Mediterranean food from demonstration.

*{line-height: 2em;} Check out liquidation sale at furniture store around the corner.

*{line-height: 2em;} Return with food from market.

*{line-height: 2em;} Drive up to Fiesta in Florissant.

** Look for “Bolivian” food mentioned in newspaper.

*** Fail to find any

** Look for our favorite vendor, Tango, with their Argentine empanadas.

** Watch lots of dances.

*{line-height: 2em;} Take girls home and lay them down for naps.

*{line-height: 2em;} Go to the batting cages and hit 60 pitches.

*{line-height: 2em;} Come home and get ready for work.

Free! Free! Free!

Saturday night was Yoli’s annual appreciation dinner for employees of the Ferguson Municipal Library. It was held at the Thyme Table, as usual, and the food was pretty good. This year they had a beef roast, with an egg/potato layered thing, and veggies. There was also a very nice chocolate mousse cake with an oreo crust. It all tasted even finer because it was FREE.

As were planning for the dinner, we decided to use a babysitter again and make an evening of it. I tried to come up for ideas of stuff to do afterward (art museum? history museum? some sort of concert?). I came up with something different — we should go to The Blanche.

(The Blanche, for those who don’t know, is what I call the “Touhill Performing Arts Center” at UMSL)

UMSL music students were holding end-of-the-semester recitals. There was a violin and piano performance scheduled for 7:00 p.m. This seemed right up our alley, since we are a somewhat musical family… (Yoli is the one who can actually play instruments. I just sing) Anyway, Yoli and I showed up. I think we were the only ones there who were not fellow music students. But still it was a lovely hour of FREE classical music. It doesn’t get much better than that!

After the concert we watched a movie called “Once” which I really, really enjoyed. It’s about two brokenhearted people in Dublin — a street musician guy and a Czech immigrant girl — who hang out, sort of fall in love, and make really great music together. That description doesn’t do the movie justice. Suffice it to say that it is probably one of the best films I have seen in the last year. Making it even sweeter? The fact that we checked it out for FREE from the aforementioned Ferguson Municipal Library.

The readingest girl ever

Jadzia really likes books. She’ll sit through a session of reading 6 books and start crying when we finish because she wants to hear more.

Since Yoli is a librarian, she enrolled Jadzia in a summer reading program where she wins a prize after listening to a certain number of books. It didn’t take but a week or so for her to win her first prize. 🙂