By Jolene FarleyNinety kids are learning and exploring in the Book of the Week Club at Hills-Beaver Creek Elementary School.The club, in its third year, began meeting 9:30 to 11:30 a.m. Wednesday, June 23, and will end for the summer Wednesday, July 21. The sessions are partially funded through a grant from the Southwest Minnesota Foundation and the Rock County Collaborative, with additional funds contributed by Hills-Beaver Creek Community Education. This year the Exchange State Bank, Hills, and Minnwest Bank, Luverne, donated money to sponsor needy families that would like to enroll children in the program. Students from birth through the sixth grade keep the books and materials covered each week. Themes range from the farm, nature, games, pets, and fairy tales for the birth-to-five-years-old group, to ocean animals, dissecting owl pellets, poetry, mysteries, and preparing a PowerPoint presentation for the fifth-and-sixth grade group. Students, in small groups or one-on-one with an adult, do activities relating to the theme of the week. The activities are tailored to increase reading skills and enhance the students enjoyment for reading. In addition to being educational, the program is an intergenerational experience for students, according to club coordinator Sara Oldre. The groups visit the Tuff Memorial Home in Hills during the program and groups of Retired Senior Volunteers read to the students or perform in the Reader’s Theater.There are four student volunteers, five parent volunteers and 12 community and grandparent volunteers.Grandparents use the club as a fun and educational outing with their grandchildren. "We have a lot of grandparents bring kids in," Oldre said.Besides Oldre, the program has four teachers. Teri Richards teaches students from birth to five-years-old, Diane VandenHoek kindergarten through second-graders, and Mary Mudder third through fifth-graders. Laura Louwagie teaches the fifth-and-sixth-graders.The program is open to children outside the Hills-Beaver Creek district.