Books teach about real life
Butterflies help capture experience
When the children finished school for the summer, they said they felt free like the butterflies they released from a terrarium a few days before.
All the talk leading up to this was about caterpillars, cocoons and finally papillons — the French word for butterflies.
Their Grade 1 teacher had set up a terrarium in their classroom to teach them about the life cycle of the caterpillar and how it transforms itself into the beautiful, colourful insect we see fluttering around in the summer.
Lindsay and Liam told me it was a fun day when they released them into the sky, but it was also sad because they had to say goodbye to them. Lindsay said some of them didn’t fly out right away so they had to help them out. Liam said some of the butterflies climbed onto the students hands and then flew away.
“It made me feel like if I were a butterfly I’d feel free forever,” Lindsay said.
So when we got a shipment of books recently and I heard their voices screaming, “papillons, papillons,” I understood their excitement.
One of the books is called “Bye, Bye Butterflies!,” by Andrew Larsen, illustrated by Jacqueline Hudon-Verrelli.
It is an exact representation of what the children had just experienced first-hand. So to say the book has been read umpteen times is certainly an understatement.
Charlie is the main character in the book who sees butterflies being released by another class and wishes he could do the same.
His wish becomes reality the following year when his teacher sets up a project just as my children’s teacher did for her class.
It’s a wonderful book based on fact with colourful illustrations to wrap it in a nice package. At the end of the book Larsen includes scientific information and drawings the children were pleased to learn about such as how butterflies defend themselves from their enemies as well as
how far they can travel.
Second book for mother/daughter team
“Find Scruncheon and Touton 2,” is the second seek-and-find book by Newfoundlanders Nancy and Laurel Keating. The children love it.
Liam said it’s a great book to look for stuff and Lindsay said it’s fun and challenging. They both admit they haven’t found everything that’s hiding in familiar scenes throughout the province, but they keep trying.
Scruncheon is a Newfoundland dog and Touton is a Labrador retriever. They’re best friends who lead readers on a colourful journey from the bird sanctuary and the beach when caplin are rolling to a kite festival and the Teddy Bears’ Picnic looking for various objects hidden throughout the scenes.
The mother-daughter team have developed a product that children can relate to while at the same time learning about some of the things that make our province remarkable.
And talk about remarkable, puffins certainly fall into that category which brings me to one other publication. It’s called “Jake the Puffin’s Amazing Adventure.”
This is not a book that can be purchased but I think it’s available through the Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture. I only mention it because it is an amazing true story, educational, full of real photographs and the children took a shining to it, and Jake.
Written by Shannon Fisher, with Nicole Hynes and Bobbi Rees, the story made headlines last Christmas when news spread about a puffin being found in Montreal.