Virtual storytime starts Thursday at Carson City Library

Carson City children can’t visit the library so librarians are bringing the library to them. Carson City Library staff is now hosting virtual story time for pre-kindergarten kids on Thursdays from 11:30-11:50 a.m. via Facebook Live.

The first one on April 2 will feature readings about bugs and bug displays, courtesy of University of Nevada, Reno’s Learning Resource Center; a dragonfly craft to make; and looking at NASA’s GLOBE Observer Mosquito Habitat Tracker citizen science project at https://observer.globe.gov/do-globe-observer/mosquitoes. April is Citizen Science Month, according to J Hodnett, senior library assistant/Digitorium facilitator. “This is a perfect time for kids to get involved with citizen science because they can do it from home and know they are really contributing to a worldwide effort,” said Hodnett.

The following week is Money Smart Week. “Next week I’ll have fun stories about money to read and we’ll be making a piggy bank,” said Hodnett. Hodnett plans to include crafts for older kids, too, who are at home with their younger siblings. She said the library’s Creative Learning staff started working on ideas to keep kids engaged as soon as they knew the library would need to close due to the coronavirus pandemic. “Almost 1,500 people have attended our programs in 2020, and more than 500 for story times, so we knew we needed to find a way to keep fulfilling this community need,” said Hodnett.