Learn @ Home!

Whether you are distance learning or homeschooling this year here are some great resources to help you in your learning from home journey.

Resources available through Charles County Public Library.

Click the images below to visit these resources.

BookFlix (Scholastic)

BookFlix® is a digital literacy resource that pairs more than 120 animated stories from Weston Woods with a best-selling nonfiction eBook from Scholastic on a similar subject. The fiction and nonfiction pairings are designed to strengthen early literacy skills while exposing young learners to real world concepts.

Brainfuse

Live, online homework help, writing labs, adult learning resources, and much more – tutors available daily 2:00 – 11:00 p.m.

Peterson’s Test and Career Prep

Prepare for standardized tests with eBooks, online courses, and full-length practice tests for GED, SAT, ACT, AP, PSAT, GRE, LSAT, MCAT, TOEFL, U.S. citizenship, and more in Gale Presents: Peterson’s Test and Career Prep.

Gale Kids InfoBits

Kids InfoBits is a great resource for elementary students. It is a content-rich, easy-to-use digital resource featuring age-appropriate, reliable, curriculum-related content covering a broad range of educational topics.

Gale In Context: Middle School

Created specifically for middle school students, Research In Context combines the best of Gale’s reference content with age-appropriate videos, newspapers, magazines, primary sources, and much more. Categories cover a range of the most-studied topics including cultures, government, people, U.S. and world history, literature, and many more.

Gale In Context: High School

Student Resources In Context offers cross-curricular content aligned to national and state curriculum standards and reinforces the development of skills such as critical thinking, problem solving, communication, collaboration, creativity, and innovation. Learners can access news content including full-text newspapers, periodicals, and hundreds of thousands of images, videos, and audio selections that include archival film clips and broadcast video.

Hoopla

Hoopla allows you to borrow movies, music, audiobooks, ebooks, comics and TV shows to enjoy on your computer, tablet, or phone – and even your TV! Instantly borrow digital movies, music, eBooks and more, 24/7 with your library card.

Kanopy

Kanopy showcases more than 30,000 of the world’s best films, including award-winning documentaries, rare and hard-to-find titles, film festival favorites, indie and classic films, and world cinema. Provides free access to The Great Courses as well as many other non-fiction video content.

LinkedIn Learning

LinkedIn Learning is an online learning site that hosts a constantly growing library of over 3,000 courses that include over 130,000 videos. Courses cover a variety of topics (including business, design, web development, and multimedia skills) and software (Microsoft Office, Adobe Creative Suite and open source applications) that can help you pursue personal and professional goals. This is a great resource for older students.

African-American History

Covering more than 500 years of the African-American experience, African-American History Online explores the full spectrum of African-American history and culture. Users can start their investigation of a topic with a video or slideshow overview, use the key content called out on the homepage to find an entryway into the database, or dig deep into an era through the Topic Centers. Read about key figures and events, examine famous speeches and other primary sources, and get context from the in-depth timelines.

Biography Reference Bank

This comprehensive biographical database offers the in-depth, original profiles from the Current Biography and World Authors series, the thorough periodical coverage of Biography Index and the specialist biographical content of Junior Authors & Illustrators. It provides biographical full-text articles, page images and abstracts from today’s leading magazines and journals.

Homeschooling

If you are homeschooling this year be sure to know Maryland laws:

1. In Maryland, you must notify the school district that you are homeschooling 15 days before the beginning of homeschooling. (Letter of intent to the County Homeschool office).
2. Home School Legal Defense Association resource for knowing the law.
3. Maryland Department of Education resources.
4. Be familiar with the supervision options in Maryland and choose one quickly (co-op, umbrella, meeting with the county office).
5. Know the Standards for what students should know and be able to do at each grade level.

CCPL Staff Picks

International Digital Children’s Library: A large database of free children’s ebooks from around the world.
BBC Bitesize: Explore BBC’s best videos, articles and quizzes for primary and secondary students.
Wide Open School: From math to emotional well-being, find free learning activities.
Open Culture K-12: Free open access web media and resources – List of over 200 free websites.
Reading Beyond: Lists curated by librarians and designed to help adults recommend age-appropriate titles that will challenge advanced readers.
Great Websites for Kids: Sponsored by the Association for Library Service to Children a division of the American Library Association Please Note: While the website is no longer being updated it still contains a plethora of great resources, just click on the X on the homescreen to close the website retirement message, if you click on Launch Website it will take you to a different site.
Smithsonian Learning Lab: Support deep, meaningful learning with an online universe of authentic resources and tools for making them your own.
SciJinks Weather: Games, articles, and activities for elementary students about weather.
Science Buddies: Hands-on Science Resources for Home and School.
Compadre: The AAPT ComPADRE Digital Library is a network of free online resource collections supporting faculty, students, and teachers in Physics and Astronomy Education.
Mystery Science: Interactive science lessons.
PBS Learning Media: WETA and PBS have curated free, standards-aligned videos, interactives, lesson plans, and more.
Exploriturium: They have created tools and experiences that help you to become an active explorer: hundreds of explore-for-yourself exhibits, a website with over 35,000 pages of content, film screenings, evening art and science events for adults and kids, plus much more.
NASA for Students of All Ages: NASA STEM @ Home Resources — Activities You Can Do Together.
NASA Solar System: Good for upper elementary and older students.
NASA Space Place: Great for young students.
Storytime from Space: Watch videos or live shows of astronauts on the International Space Station read stories.
Travels with Music: Learn about and enjoy music from around the world.

Coding

Code.org: Learn how to code in Scratch and other programming languages, great for all ages.
Codecombat: Teaches students how to code in either JavaScript or Python, two of the most popular programming languages.
Tynker: A fun way to learn programming and develop problem solving & critical thinking skills for ages 5-17.