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What's So Great About the Summer Learning Challenge?
Monday, June 30, 2014
By: Veronica Brown


A Program Like No Other

The Summer Learning Challenge: Explore and Roar is a program like no other in the city -- and it's happening now at all Chicago Public Library locations through August 2nd.

With a focus on animals, the environment and conservation, Explore and Roar incorporates learning activities, hands-on projects, field trips, programs and performances, and digital badging into eight busy weeks. Kids will have so much fun that they won't realize they're "learning".

Partnerships with the Museum of Science and Industry (MSI) the Brookfield and Lincoln Park Zoos, and the Anti-Cruelty Society bring Explore and Roar to life -- literally! This year's program features specialized learning opportunities for Early Learners andTeens.

The program is free to all participants thanks to generous funding from donors to the Library Foundation. 

Participants can sign up online (or at their local branch) and start completing challenges to earn prizes and digital badges:

  • Read for a summer total of 300 minutes: Includes books, magazines, eBooks, and audio books.
  • Discover: Complete a Brain Builder, take a field trip, attend a library program, explore a recommended website.
  • Create: Create a piece of art, write a story or poem, design or build a structure, complete a Curiosity Kit Challenge.
  • Reflect: Visit your local branch to share your book "reflection" with a junior volunteer.
  • Enter weekly drawings: Free books, prizes and more!

Programmatic highlights of this summer's theme include Dave DiNaso’s Traveling World of Reptiles, and High Touch High Tech's “Extreme Scene,” through which kids can learn how animals survive extreme environments on earth. Kids can also design a zoo habitat with Project Syncere, create an animal puppet with Marilyn Price's "If I Ran the Puppet" workshop, and so much more!

Check your local branch or the Library's website for the Summer Learning Challenge programs coming to your branch.

You can still sponsor kids for just $10 in this year's Summer Learning Challenge.