by Polly Gallagher, Executive Director
Considering homeschooling or online school? Grand County Library District has a wealth
of resources to support you.
As a parent planning for more direct involvement in a child’s education, the Library gives you access to hundreds of thousands of books (print, audio, and digital) and periodicals including newspapers and magazines for current events.
A new collection of Read Alongs as well as a collection of high interest books coupled with audio books support reluctant readers. Speak to a librarian if there is a particular subject your child is studying (Aztecs, Renaissance, fairy tales) in order to have a collection of physical books placed on hold for you to pick up.
Is your child in need of completing research? Look to the “eBooks & Learning Tools” tab on our website. Why do this rather than an open internet search? These are vetted resources that pass the CRAAP test (Currency, Relevance, Authority, Accuracy, and Purpose). Your child’s brain won’t be competing between paid advertising and accurate, current content. You can enrich the core subjects of reading, writing, mathematics, social studies, and science with art and world language through CreativeBug and Rosetta Stone. All these resources also provide a great stepping stone for passion projects.
Services aren’t just limited to reading materials from your Library. With asynchronistic online learning, you might find a need to supplement with hands-on exploration. Thanks to the fundraising efforts of the Friends of Grand County Library, Take & Make kits will be available for pick up starting in September on a variety of topics. Each kit will provide directions, materials, and suggested resource connections to study various concepts in science, music, art, technology, and engineering and are geared for ages 0-teen.
Take & Make kits aren’t the only hands on-materials we have for our community. Starting in the Fall, kits of automatons, ambigrams, fractals, and robotics will be available for check out from your library. These kits to take home will include a variety of manipulatives and books to check out, explore and return. The Colorado State Library has kits including arrow heads, fossils, music, and NASA detective. These will be available in the coming months.
Writing groups, civic discussion group, astronomy club, storytime, and book groups are meeting online and outdoors. After-school clubs will begin in October. These are great ways to provide some opportunity for social interaction as well as explore topics of interest.
A quiet place to work and an uninterrupted wifi signal are also available to your through the Library. Study rooms will be available for use in the coming weeks as well as our meeting rooms. In order to ensure cleaning and sanitizing, these rooms are available on a limited basis during library hours with limited users due to social distancing. Meeting rooms should be available by September.
If there is something you need to support your child’s education, speak with a librarian to see how we can help. And, if you need a library card, either visit your local library or email cardsignup@gcld.org.
