Karen in Chicago

We are big Erin Flynn fans and we listen to Dreamer of Dreams at least once a day, so we were very excited about the Cicada Singalong at the Notebaert Nature Museum. As it turns out, the event was even more wonderful than we expected. This time, I remembered my camera and battery. I wish I had a larger memory card, because I would have recorded more of the event.

For those of you who aren’t from the Chicago area, the 17 year Cicadas are up and about, even though you don’t really see any in the city. Interesting information from Wikipedia that mentions insects and prime numbers:

The Magicicada goes through a 17- or occasionally 13-year life cycle. These long life cycles are an adaptation to predators such as the cicada killer wasp and praying mantis, as a predator could not regularly fall into synchrony with the cicadas. Both 13 and 17 are prime numbers, so while a cicada with a 15-year life cycle could be preyed upon by a predator with a 3- or 5-year life cycle, the 13- and 17-year cycles allow them to stop the predators falling into step.

The event is hard to describe. I think it was more “interactive educational kids theater” than a singalong. Erin had the kids act out the life cycle of the Cicada while she described each stage of the Cicada’s life in song. What is amazing is that it completely worked. The kids loved it, the songs were amazing and everything just flowed. Erin just seemed to connect really well with the kids. She was never condescending and the kids really seemed to get what she was talking about. I wasn’t sure how much my 2 year old really absorbed, but then this morning when youtube finally finished processing my videos, she exclaimed, “I want the Timbales song”.