Montana PBS Kids Summer Library Tour Makes Stop in Glasgow

Area children and the Glasgow City-County Library had special visitors during the library's summer reading program activity on July 2. Montana PBS Kids made a stop in Glasgow as part of their 2019 Summer Library Tour, bringing a variety of space-themed activities to match the library's summer reading program titled "Universe of Stories."

The tour was split into two sessions, with children aged two to four in the morning session and children aged five to eight in the afternoon session. In between sessions, Whyatt from the PBS Kids show "Super Why" also made an appearance to greet children of all ages and provide photo opportunities for parents.

During the morning sessions, children had the opportunity to rotate between six stations in order to explore the wonders of space. The stations included throwing asteroids (balls made of aluminum) into a cut-out rocket, build rockets, planets or anything left to the imagination with magna tiles, make a paper crown of planets which each child had to color in, play with moon sand, either connect the dots or thread a shoelace to make a constellation, and a corner with the library's space-themed books to allow parent bonding. The second session included stations that explored learning what space actually is.

"I was thrilled that Montana PBS contacted us to be part of the Summer Tour. We had awesome participation with a great turnout from the community. I hope that Montana PBS will continue to partner with Montana libraries on tours such as this one. We are grateful to them for traveling to our community, to the library in the middle of nowhere!," exclaimed Library Director Megan Haddix.

The Summer Library Tour is in its third year and has matched the theme of their tour based upon the statewide summer reading program. A character from a Montana PBS Kids show always makes an appearance and activities are done based upon the theme. "We try and make the activities educational and a mixture of activities parents could do at home and unique activities," stated Development Assistant Victoria Schofield. Libraries are picked to be part of the tour based upon their response to a mass e-mail that is sent to all of the libraries requesting their interest in being part of the tour. Last year, the library responded to the e-mail with their interest, but didn't get picked. This year they also responded and was chosen due to its size and proximity to the state. "We split the state into six different areas in order to try and get to every region. Glasgow was chosen for northeast Montana because of the amount of people in the county," stated Schofield.

In addition to Glasgow, the Summer Library Tour visited Great Falls, Red Lodge, Miles City and Hamilton. "The motivation in creating this tour three years ago was to provide early childhood opportunities around the state," explained Schofield. The tour is funded through the Montana PBS Kids Kids Club, which provides the introduction to PBS programming resources, viewership funding through PBS and some grants.

The Glasgow City-County Library's Summer Reading Program is currently in process and will end on July 24 with a celebration party on July 26. Upcoming activities for the library's program includes "Astronaut Training" for children ages zero to six at 10 a.m., July 11, "The Night Sky" program for children ages seven to 12 at 2 p.m. on July 16 and "Reach for the Stars" for children ages zero to six at 10 a.m. on July 18.

For more information on the library's summer reading program contact the library at 228-2731 or stop by 408 3rd Ave S., Glasgow.