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May is National Walking Month.

Homework & Research Help for Kids

Homework Tips

There are loads of resources to help you with your homework. Library databases have lots of useful information that’s not necessarily available through Google. Plus, you know you can trust this information. Many websites can also help you with your homework, but make sure you’re safe while surfing the Internet, that the websites you find are from reliable sources, and learn how to cite those sources.

Library Databases

The “databases” here have lots of information not typically available through the Internet. You’ll need your library card to log into some of them.

Khan Academy – “Learn almost anything for free.”
3300 videos explain many subjects.

Primary Search – Contains full-text for more than 60 elementary school magazines.  In addition to the full text, this database offers indexing and abstracts for nearly 100 magazines.  Full-text is also available for over 100 student pamphlets.

Primary Search Reference eBook Subscription This ebook reference collection offers a rich selection of eBook titles covering a broad range of general reference subjects for primary school students. Topics include social studies, history, language arts, geography, culture, math, and science.

 

Middle Search Plus [EBSCO] contains primary source documents including Essential Documents in American History and reference books such as the Funk & Wagnalls New World Encyclopedia and the Encyclopedia of Animals. Full-text magazines include Sports Illustrated Kids, Scholastic News, National Geographic and dozens more.

Middle Search Reference eBook Subscription [EBSCO] – Designed for middle school libraries, Middle Search Plus is a full-text database providing popular middle school magazines and reference e-books. Covering subjects such as history, current events, science and sports, it also includes thousands of primary source documents and videos from the Associated Press.

Websites

We’ve also created a list of recommended fun websites for kids.

Can You Trust That Website?

Ask yourself questions when using websites for your research:
  • Who wrote it? Does the author have training or education in the subject? What is the source of the information?
  • Does the site come from a well-known organization or news source?
  • How does this compare to other information? When evaluating websites it’s important to look at multiple sites so you can compare information.
  • When was this updated? Has the site been updated recently? If not, move on.
  • What is the site linked to? Was the site linked from another webpage that you trust? If so, that’s a good sign.
  • Is the site filled with advertising? This could mean that it was created for you to look at the ads more than the content of the writing.
A checklist:

Internet Safety

  • MediaSmarts Games - Educational computer games that introduce kids to key ideas in media and digital literacy. These games are a great way to start a conversation on media issues in the home or classroom, and you can play most of them right here on our website.

Citing Sources: Writing a Bibliography

Writing a Bibliography
A Bibliography is a list of all the books, articles, websites, interviews or movies that you used to create your project or report. It’s important to give credit to the people whose work you used for your report. And it gives you, your teacher and anyone else who reads your report a chance to refer to those sources for more information. There are different ways you can do this and your teacher will tell you which they prefer (if they haven’t, just ask them).

Looking for more information?

Check our Kids page for more information on library programs for kids and other websites to help support kids as they grow up.