Harrington Library Board discusses school program

HARRINGTON – Susan Larmer chaired the Library Board meeting here on Feb. 8 at 3:30 p.m. with board members Grace Moeller, Stacey Rasmussen and Katie Steward plus instructor Kris Moritz, librarian Marge Womach and Mayor Jess Silhan present

The board had asked Mortiz to come and report how the After School Program is going and to give her the opportunity to make requests if needed. She has been leading the program since September one Thursday per month at Memorial Hall.

Moritz stated that she has consistently had a craft, an activity and a snack time and often has a story time or an interesting individual from the community visit the children, such as Joe Armand and his exotic birds.

She asked the board for suggestions on new things to do, and shared the proposed future dates of March 17, April 21 and May 19, for which the Board intends to make flyers to advertise.

Attendance for the After School Program has been quite positive with the following figures: 15, 12, 15, 12 and six.

The children's favorite craft seems to have been making of bird feeders using pine cones, peanut butter and bird seed. Their activities have included coloring t-shirts and making Christmas and Valentine decorations.

Rasmussen opened a box of kits that she received from the State Library. There were five each of three types of kits: curiosity, slime and puppets.

The "slime" kit was a chemistry experiment with safety warnings. The puppets kit had a list of recommended books to purchase: "The Doll People" by Ann Martin, "Saturday" by Oge Mora, "Puppet Play" by Diana Schoenbrun, and "The Storyteller" by Evan Turk.

The board also discussed a potential $6,000 grant for extra computers, the use of e-books by many patrons, the need to thin the library books prior to starting the digitalization project to replace the card catalogue system and potentially creating Teenage and Adult Book Clubs in the Fall.

After-School Program

Moritz held the After School Program on Feb. 17 at Memorial Hall with seven children attending and two parents and Evie Mann assisting her. The children made bird feeders using pinecones and peanut butter with bird seed for their craft project which was new to most of this group of children.

Another activity was tossing a very soft ball into a basket, which worked well with this small group of children; each was allowed more attempts to succeed. They enjoyed sidewalk art with chalk and for their treat time they had hot chocolate and Rice Krispie treats.