Chair Decorating Class on Monday, March 8 @ 6:00 pm

Monday, March 8 @ 6:00 pm - In person and streamed on Facebook Live!

This coming summer, our Chair Affair fundraiser will raise money to help refresh our children's area! If you haven't gotten to participate before, here's what happens: local volunteers paint and decorate chairs (we have many donated chairs at the library), then the chairs are put up for an auction which culminates during June Dairy Days 2021. All proceeds will go towards improving and brightening our children's section!

Volunteers to paint or decorate a chair are earnestly needed! Would you like to help but feel like you don’t have the skills? Then, we hope you'll consider attending our Chair “Refresher” Course on Monday, March 8 at 6:00 pm! This free, informational class will give you all the ideas, tips, and tricks you need to get you started on your own chair design. We'll cover topics like how to prep a chair, how to transfer decals or stencils, and painting techniques. You will be pleasantly surprised at how easy and fun “refreshing” an old chair can be. And if you decide you would like to be a chair artist in the Chair Affair, you can even pick out a chair afterwards to take home! This class will be led by local artists Nancy Kirst and Cindy Boelter.

This class will be held in person and will also be live-streamed on Facebook Live on Monday, March 8 at 6:00 pm. If you would like to attend in person, we would appreciate it if you signed up in advance. To watch the class online, all you have to do is go to our Facebook page when the class begins at 6:00 pm.

To let us know if you plan on attending in person or if you have any questions, please call the library at (920) 398-3434.

Winter Reading Program runs Mon. Feb. 8 - Sat. Mar. 13

Thanks to a generous donation by the Giddy Up Bar & Grill in Dalton for children’s activities along with other donated funds, the library is able to offer a Winter Reading program!! Similar to our Summer Reading program, the Winter program, “Snow Much Fun”, is raffle based and there are fun raffle prizes for all ages!! Stop by to see them all, or visit our Facebook page for a few sneak peek photos!


Children & Teens:
Children & teens are invited to pick up reading tickets at the library and begin logging their reading. For every two hours read, a reading ticket will be completed and participants can enter that ticket into the raffle of his or her choice.

Adults
For adults, every book read earns a completed raffle ticket, which can be put towards the raffle prize of their choice.

Reading tickets can be picked up as early as February 1st.
The program will culminate on Saturday, March 13 with prizes being picked on Monday, March 15. 

Thank you also to the Markesan Area Chamber of Commerce and Subway of Markesan for donating 16 6-inch Subway coupons for our reading program!!


If you have any questions about participating in our Winter Reading Program, please call the library at (920) 398-3434, or visit the Winter Reading Program page on our website for more details! (It's under the "Fun For All" category in the banner at the top our of our homepage). 

State and Federal tax forms now available

State and federal tax forms are now available at the library! We are open for our normal hours and services, but if you would prefer contactless service, we can bring out forms to you as a curbside pickup. If you have any questions about which forms we have, or curbside service, please call us at (920) 398-3434.

Take and Make Kit: Bunny Garden on Tuesday, March 9 @ 12:00 pm

Starting Tuesday, March 9 at 12:00 pm, you can pick up a new Take and Make Craft Kit! This week's kit has all the supplies and instructions to make an adorable Bunny Garden! A small fee of $5 covers the cost of supplies. If you would like to reserve a Bunny Garden Craft Kit, please call the library at (920) 398-3434!

If you would prefer contactless service, we can bring a craft kit out to you as a curbside pickup - just ask, we'll be happy to set it out for you!

The Bunny Gnome craft kit that was originally scheduled for this week has been moved towards the end of the month, dates will be given soon.

Please look at our monthly newsletter to see the schedule for March's Take and Make Craft Kits! If you would like to reserve any of the upcoming kits or have any other questions, please call the library at (920) 398-3434!

E-Sports League on Thurs. March 11 & 25 from 4:00-4:30 pm

 E-Sports League: Among Us - Battle of the Libraries!

Thursday, March 11 & 25 from 4:00 - 4:30 pm

Join our crew for a few games of Among Us! This time we'll also be playing with Princeton and Brandon Public Libraries! Small prizes will be awarded, too!
Open to players ages 10 and up (younger can join with adult supervision).
 

Bring your own device or use one of ours (a limited number of these devices are available). You can also play from home using our Lobby Code. To get the Lobby Code, simply sign up for the event at the library or by calling us at (920) 398-3434 and let us know you will be playing from home. We will then call you the evening of the event with the code/codes.

We encourage interested gamers to sign up ahead of time to make sure they have a spot, especially if you need to use one of the library's devices. 
 

We have room for twenty participants. Good digital citizenship is expected to be followed during this event.

 

If you would like more information about Among Us, you can read it in the event description on our Facebook calendar. 
 

Craft kits for Wed. March 3 Children's Alphabet Adventures Storytime available at the library

Kids, come to the library and pick up a storytime pack to craft along with Miss Brittany! Miss Brittany’s storytimes are every Wednesday at 10:30 am on our Facebook page.  Storytime videos will be kept up all week long so you can tune in when it works best for you!  This week (Wednesday, March 3), make a terrific tiger T! You will need your own glue, scissors, and orange and black colors at home. To reserve a Storytime craft kit, just call the library at (920) 398-3434 or pick one up on the table in the children's section. If you prefer, we can also bring a kit out to you as a curbside pickup! 

Online Challenge: 100 Books Before College for ages 12 and up

100 Books Before College (ages 12-19): 100 Books before College dares readers 12-19 yrs. to read 100 books before they graduate. Small prizes will be awarded as you get closer to 100 books. At every 10 books read, participants earn tickets to enter into a prize raffle of either a $25 Ted’s Piggly Wiggly Gift Card or $10 gas station cards. The raffle drawing will be on June 1, 2021. Find out more here at our online challenges page!

This challenge will take place completely online and readers can access it at markesanlibrary.beanstack.org. Participants can also download the Beanstack app and search for Markesan Library to play.

Click here to begin! 

Online Challenges

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This project was brought to you by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction and made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services grant LS-00-19-0050-19.

Updated Online Resources

Boy with headphonesMore Online Resources to Keep You Connected! 
(Thank you Princeton Public Library for compiling and sharing many of these links with us )

We can offer you plenty of  online learning and entertainment opportunities!

You may need a library card to access some of our resources. When required to sign in to use our online resources all you need to do is enter your library card number with no spaces. Your PIN is usually the last four digits of the phone number you gave us when you aquired a card.

If you don't have a library card, go here to get one free:Click Here
If  you lost your card or don't remember your number, contact the library through emai: director@markesanlibrary.org or by phone: 920-398-3434.  You can leave a message and a librarian will get back to you shortly.

Now that the basics have been explained, onto the resources!

Overdrive is our most popular online resource-- download ebooks and audiobooks for free! If you have a smartphone or tablet, download the Libby App. Books are available for all ages, and we recently added many more titles. You may have to wait to download some books, but others are available 24/7. J.K. Rowling recently released the audio and ebook versions of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone for unlimited checkouts with no waiting until April 30th.

Digital Books: The library's digital book offerings have exploded with brand new content for all ages. Tumblebooks, Abdo, Audio Book Cloud, National Emergency Library and More!  Check it out.

Need financial assistance? UW Madison has put together a great list of resources.

Need help finding work?  See the Winnefox Employment Help Center page.

Do you have a young student at home? Check out Facebook Live Storytime each Wednesday at 10:30 am.  The Markesan Public Library also has started  the 1,000 Books Before Kindergarten program, get a jump start reading to your little ones now.  KidLit TV, Scholastic's Learn at Home, a list of 30 online "field trips" with live cameras or virtual walk-throughs, a sample daily schedule for kids, a great list of resources at Read Wonder & Learn, Live Learning videos with LivBits, Mystery Science lessons for grades K-5, and 1 Hour Coding for Kids for K-9th grades. Finally, there's a HUGE List of at-home educational entertainment resources, including live webcams, activities and more.

Do you have an older student at home?
Check out our Homework Help page.  Want to learn technology skills at your own pace by watching these video tutorials on popular software and computer basics?  Try the Winnefox Tech Skills Center .  Gale Courses is another popular resource that offers interactive, instructor led online courses available on a wide variety of topics. Explore our Research Page for more great links, including genealogy resources, automotive repair guides, Consumer Reports, language learning, and lots more.

Want more free ebooks?
Sesame Street is offering some free ebooks for kids right now.
The Internet Archive's Open Library has textbooks, classics, and even some juvenile chapter books like The Giver by Lowis Lowry, The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan, and Matilda by Roald Dahl.
 Open Culture has a nice list of older classics.
The National Emergency Library is a collection of mostly older non-fiction books that supports remote teaching, research activities, independent scholarship, and intellectual stimulation.
Project Gutenberg has over 60,000 titles (mostly older).

Do you miss the Book Page magazine? Sign up to get a digital copy.

Need to connect with people digitally? Here are some resources for online meetings:

Microsoft Teams: https://products.office.com/en-us/microsoft-teams/group-chat-software
Facebook Live: https://www.facebook.com/facebookmedia/solutions/facebook-live
Google Hangouts: https://gsuite.google.com/products/meet/
Zoho: https://www.zoho.com/meeting/
Zoom: https://zoom.us/
Join.me: https://www.join.me/

If you have any trouble accessing any of these resources, feel free to contact the library by emai: director@markesanlibrary.org.  Or you can call us and leave a message at 920-398-3434.  A librarian will get back to you shortly.

1000 Books Before Kindergarten Head Start!

1000 Books Graphic

 

Staying indoors while the weather gets colder? Why not try our 1000 Books Before Kindergarten program! Because there may be more downtime during the COVID-19 emergency, we would like to give parents the opportunity to start logging the many wonderful books they may be already reading to their children. Visit the 1000 Books tab of our website to get started today! 

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