homeschooling – Stay Connected with Chescolibraries

Hello! My name’s Rebecca. For those who haven’t been following this series, I am the Information Literacy Librarian here at the Chester County Library. (You might recognize me as the librarian with the purple hair!) Welcome to this series here on our blog where every week (or thereabouts) I’ll be introducing you to one of the library’s databases. A library database, for those who are unsure, is essentially just an online resource that the library pays for so that you can access it for free with your library card!

We have officially come to the end of this databases series! Except for future updates, when we add or remove resources, this will be my last post for this series. So, last, but certainly not least, I will talk about our two big children’s literacy databases: BookFlix and TrueFlix.

Scholastic’s BookFlix pairs classic video storybooks with related nonfiction from trusted Scholastic imprints. This engaging resource for children in grades pre-K through 3 will help early readers develop and practice essential reading skills and introduce them to a world of knowledge and exploration. Each BookFlix unit includes a video of a classic children’s story; a related nonfiction text presented in an eBook format; interactive educational games related to the specific pair; profiles of the author and illustrator of the story on which the video is based; editorially selected, age-appropriate Web links related to the pair topic; and suggested teaching activities created specifically for each fiction/nonfiction pair. A number of pairs are available in Spanish!

TrueFlix leverages the award-winning True Books content to help students hone literacy skills, build knowledge of subject-area content, and cultivate 21st Century Skills through the inquiry process. All of the True Book titles are supported with related content and primary sources featuring videos, audio, images, and text. Each TrueFlix title includes a streaming video that engages the student and introduces the topic; a flipbook version of the True Book with page-turning and read-along features, chapter tabs, and vocabulary terms identified and defined; related content that provides opportunities for further research and reading across a variety of text types; a lesson plan with teaching activities that are tied to the specific content of that TrueFlix topic; a project goal and ideas or questions on how to kick-start research; a 10-question multiple-choice quiz and a Word Match game based on the important words included in each title; and related Web links to help further extend learning, broaden the content area, and provoke further research.

Find BookFlix on our website by going to chescolibraries.org –> Tools and Research –> All CCLS Databases –> B –> BookFlix (POWER Library)

Find TrueFlix on our website by going to chescolibraries.org –> Tools and Research –> All CCLS Databases –> T –> TrueFlix (POWER Library)

This is the final post in this databases series! If you missed the previous installments, you can view them here.

We’re nearing the end of this series, but I still have a couple more important topics to cover, the first of which is research and reference databases. We have a number of research and reference databases both through us and through POWER Library targeted towards various age groups and covering a wide range of subjects. These are useful for doing research, completing school papers or projects, homeschooling, or otherwise finding authoritative sources. I will go over each of them briefly here:

Academic Search Main Edition (POWER Library): This database includes full-text and peer-reviewed articles in subjects such as biology, chemistry, engineering, physics, psychology, religion, and theology.

Gale eBooks: We currently have two Gale eBooks collections, one through POWER Library and one through CCL. These collections include reference titles in the arts, biography, business, education, environment, general reference, history, literature, medicine, nation and world, science, and the social sciences. CCL’s collection includes the Business Plans Handbook series.

GreenFILE (POWER Library): GreenFILE offers well-researched information covering all aspects of human impact to the environment. Its collection of scholarly, government, and general-interest titles includes content on global warming, green building, pollution, sustainable agriculture, renewable energy, recycling, and more.

IN CONTEXT: Middle School (POWER Library): This database includes reliable and trusted information on a variety of topics to support middle school student research for government, U.S and world history, geography, literature, sciences, and social issues.

Kids InfoBits (POWER Library): Elementary students in kindergarten through grade five will find age-appropriate content covering a broad range of educational topics such as animals, arts, geography, health, literature, people, social studies, technology, and etc. Content is continuously updated and provides interesting and important facts with connections to current and past events.

Library, Information Science and Technology Abstracts (POWER Library): This database indexes a number of journals, books, research reports, and proceedings in subjects such as librarianship, classification, cataloging, bibliometrics, online information retrieval, information management and more. Coverage in the database extends back as far as the mid-1960s.

MasterFILE Premiere: This database provides subject overviews, full text for magazine articles (including Consumer Reports Magazine and Consumer Reports Buying Guides), an image collection, and AP clips. (Please note that we will no longer have access to this database after June of this year, so use it now while you can!)

ONEFILE: High School Edition (POWER Library): Secondary school students will have access to age-appropriate content from magazines, journals, newspapers, reference books, and engaging multi-media covering a wide range of subjects, from science, history, and literature to political science, sports, and environmental studies.

Science Reference Center: Perform research from hundreds of full text science encyclopedias, reference books, periodicals, and other reliable sources. View high-quality science images from sources such as UPI, Getty, NASA, National Geographic, and the Nature Picture Library.

SIRS Discoverer: This database provides coverage in areas including history, health, language arts, math, science, social studies, and technology. All newspaper, magazine, and reference book content is 100% full text, editorially-selected, and indexed from publishers such as Britannica, World Book, Rosen Publishing Group, Enslow, and ReferencePoint Press.

Teacher Reference Center: Teacher Reference Center provides indexing and abstracts for 280 of the most popular teacher and administrator journals and magazines to assist professional educators.

Find these databases on our website by going to chescolibraries.org –> Tools and Research –> All CCLS Databases

This post is number 21 in this databases series! If you missed the previous installments, you can view them here.

Tag: homeschooling

Databases Series: BookFlix & TrueFlix

Databases Series: Research & Reference