Whoever wrote that boys were made of snips and snails while girls were made of sugar and spice didn’t know 4-year-old Ava McConnell, who had no problem letting a slug sit on the tip of her finger for closer inspection.
Spiders, on the other hand, might have been a different story for her.
Regardless, Ava joined dozens of other small children as they canvased Sankey Park on Aug. 9 to find what kind of insects the park hosted. It was an event put on by the Sweet Home Public Library as part of its weekly Summer Reading Program park projects. But what do bugs have to do with libraries?
“It’s learning, right?” Programming Librarian Kira Mikutaitis responded. “Everything is learning and we want to kind of encourage that lifelong learning with kids, that idea that you can learn out in the park. You can also learn at the library, you can learn wherever you’re at.”
Mikutaitis coordinates each of the projects held at the park every Friday during the summer. This year she loosely based the reading program project themes around recycling, with an occasional water fight scheduled.
“We try to make it fun, educational, something that is exciting,” she said.
Even if it’s not altogether “educational,” another aspect of the program is to get kids together to form a sort of community, she added.
“It’s a great way for them to be able to interact with kids their own age, but also littler kids and bigger kids,” Mikutaitis said. “It gives them kind of this sense of community that the library is trying to foster.”
On this day in particular, the kids were tasked with finding a list of bugs, such as butterflies, ladybugs, spiders and “roly polies.” They also filled small jars with dirt and twigs to create a home for any found insects, although Mikutaitis encouraged the children to return the bugs to the park before they left.
Some bugs not on the list were also identified by children, including a grasshopper, earwigs and a slug. Kenzlee Brown, 6, said the best part of the day was “catching the grasshopper,” a big fella who couldn’t jump away fast enough as she captured her prize.
