Child Center’S Resources Prove A Central Point
It’s a parent’s dream: boxes filled with stuffed animals, puppets and Native American drums, books on potty training, discipline and attention disorders, articles on biting, air bag safety and allowances - all free to borrow for the asking.
“This stuff is really costly,” says Tara Hockett, a volunteer at Coeur d’Alene’s Early Childhood Resource Center. “For every parent to have it all just isn’t feasible.”
Which is why the resource center sprang to life in the Harding Family Center.
“I’ve upgraded some of my parenting skills just working here,” says Terri Teupel, grabbing a collection of videos that please her children, Brandon and Brittany.
The former elementary school is an appropriate site for the center. It’s in a classroom with a blackboard along one wall. Terri sits at a teacher’s desk. Inspirational posters line the walls.
Head Start and Even Start, its newer program, realized a few years ago that each child care center in town collected its own resource materials. If teachers wanted a lesson on dinosaurs, centers scrambled to buy books, stuffed dinosaurs and models.
Child care centers are typically strapped for money, so centralizing materials seemed practical. A VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America) volunteer gathered child care workers and asked what they wanted in a centralized collection.
Public agencies involved in the project pushed the resource center into the public realm. Whatever was available to child care centers also was available to parents, grandparents, even baby sitters.
Terri and Tara have had fun stocking the center’s shelves with books on learning problems, good nutrition and craft projects.
They’ve filled plastic boxes with a wok set and embroidered tapestry to introduce toddlers to Asia, a wood puzzle and stuffed pink dinosaur for a lesson on dinosaurs and an abacus and plastic numbers so children can learn to count.
Terri teaches anyone interested to use the Internet and open an e-mail account on the center’s five computers.
The center checks out materials like any library. Find out more at its open house Thursday, 6-8 p.m. Terri and Tara have 100 new children’s books to give away, and a slew of door prizes. The Harding Family Center is at 411 N. 15th St.
Plentiful posies
This Sunday is the day to walk brazenly across private property and study closely the gardens you’ve admired from afar. The Coeur d’Alene Garden Club holds its annual Garden Tour from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. That’s five hours to wander through two gardens in Hayden Lake, two in Post Falls and two in Coeur d’Alene. Wear running shoes.
This year’s gardens range from managed wilderness with accents in rust (ancient cars and equipment strategically placed) to perfectly manicured flower beds in the shade of towering Ponderosa pines.
Tickets cost $7 for adults, $6 for seniors and $4 for children if you buy them before Sunday. They’re available at garden centers in Coeur d’Alene and Spokane, Johannes Jewelers and Simon’s Do-It Center.
Tickets will go for $8 Sunday at 10:30 a.m. in North Idaho College’s library parking lot. Tickets include maps to the gardens. Call 772-0647 or 765-6570 for details.
Hello, Ellen
If friends are in town, take them to the Coeur d’Alene Summer Theatre’s production of “Hello Dolly” this weekend. It stars North Idaho favorites Ellen Travolta and Jack Bannon. What other towns can say that? Call 769-7780 for tickets.