Dictionaries, Encyclopedias & Atlases
Britannica School and Britannica Kids: Free access to search for facts, video, graphics, etc.
Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary: Includes a thesaurus and rhyming dictionary.
Fact Monster: Online almanac, dictionary, encyclopedia
Atlapedia: Maps of countries around the world.
Bartleby: Famous and interesting quotes.
CIA World Factbook: A variety of sources for statistical data and information.
Encyclopedia of Earth: Information from agriculture to wildlife.
Free Databases
MARVEL! Databases: quality primary source information, newspaper and journal articles, crafting and hobby how-to’s.Over 50 free databases!
Free E-Books, Audio Books & Music
Overdrive: Using your Power School ID and the password Reading, you will have access to hundreds of free e-books and audio books. You can also take advantage of even more free Overdrive downloads by using your Southwest Harbor Public Library card to access an expanded catalog of titles HERE
Freegal: Use your Southwest Harbor Public Library card to download and own 3 songs a week, for free!
Open Library: Account holders can borrow an e-book from the growing collection of mainly 20th Century titles. Up to 5 titles for 2 weeks each can be borrowed, either in-browser or as a PDF or ePub file.
Project Gutenberg has oodles of e-books, available free online!
Academics
Khan Academy: Kids can watch videos to learn about math and a whole lot more!
CK-12 Flexbooks: free online textbooks for all kinds of subjects
Libraries
Southwest Harbor Public Library: Searchable Catalog for onsite and inter-library loan.
Library of Congress: A little bit of everything…American Story, National Jukebox, Pictures, Poetry and Literature, etc…
Digital Public Library of America: A portal to 12 million items from libraries, archives, and museums.
Finding Dulcinea: The “librarian of the Internet”, Finding Dulcinea presents only credible, high-quality and trustworthy Web sites, saving time for the novice and the experienced user alike.
Readers’ Advisory and Book Selection
NoveList K-8 Plus Fiction and nonfiction summaries of books for grades K-8. Included are recommendations for more than 60,000 fiction and 17,000 nonfiction titles; curriculum-driven material designed to help integrate reading across subject areas in the classroom; recommended Reads reading lists; BookTalks; and Curricular Connection articles on a wide variety of topics, issues and reading levels.
Lexile Framework for Reading Exhaustive database of titles’ Lexile levels. Great for determining a book’s level or searching for books in your Lexile range.
Research and Information Resources
Explora for Middle Schools Has a user-friendly design that simplifies the search process and creates a friendly user experience Includes Funk & Wagnall’s New World Encyclopedia, Middle Search Plus, Health Source-Consumer Edition, Military and Government Collection, MAS Ultra-School Edition, Literary Reference Center, GreenFILE, Topic Overviews 6-12, and the statewide EBSCO and Project Gutenberg e-book collections.
Explora for Primary Schools has a user-friendly design that simplifies the search process and creates a friendly user experience. Includes Funk & Wagnall’s New World Encyclopedia, the American Heritage Children’s Dictionary, Primary Search and Topic Overviews K-5.
Kids Health: Great for research for lower/middle levels specifically designed for kids regarding health.
NASA: Studying space in science? They’ve got it all.
National Geographic: All things environment, animal, photography…and, of course, there is the Kids site!
How Stuff Works: An award-winning source of unbiased, reliable, easy-to-understand answers and explanations of how the world actually works.
Internet Archive: A non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, and more. Plus, the Wayback Machine is just about the coolest thing alive.
SchoolTube: YouTube for schools. Videos made by and for school use.
Biography: Biographies of all kinds of famous people
Search Engines
Kids Click: Kid-friendly searching
Sweet Search: Searching specifically designed for students!
Teacher Resources
Knowmia: Features short video lessons from great teachers. By bringing together a wide range of video lessons, we help you convey challenging subjects, prepare you for an upcoming test or new course, and find the right teacher for your style of learning.
Exploring Nature: Life Science, Earth Science, and Physical Science Resources for K-12 students and teachers.