Library Resources
Lyndsay Smotherman
West Hardin Elementary
Hardin County Schools’ libraries are here to help you in school and at home. Each school librarian believes reading is a fundamental skill and every student has a right to learn to read and practice his/her reading skills through appropriate and engaging books. HCS librarians are also here to help students, parents/guardians, and educators find supplemental resources to help with teaching, homework, and test and career preparation. Below are some of the online resources that HCS librarians use and recommend.
Each librarian loves to stay connected with students through email and updates on her school’s OPAC.
Best For All
“Best for All Central will provide anyone in Tennessee with access to high-quality learning supports for free online. The goal of this project has always been to provide a one-stop-shop for excellent learning and teaching resources that will support our teachers and districts throughout the year, and the availability of this resources became even more urgent as Tennesseans navigate new challenges in education stemming from COVID-19,” said Commissioner Penny Schwinn. “We are thrilled to provide this resource for the new school year, and over time, the department will continue adding learning supports and free professional development resources on timely topics that support students, their teachers and their families.”
TN Electronic Library
The Tennessee Electronic Library (TEL) is an online library that gives Tennessee residents access to magazines, journals, newspapers, essays, e-books, primary source materials, test preparation, homework help, genealogy records, career search, and more! TEL resources are available free to the public from any computer with Internet access in Tennessee. Explore the TEL website to find resources for ALL Grades, including Homework Help, Test Prep (ACT, ASVAB, Drivers Permit, and more), Career prep and search, and Research. Click the Students tab and choose a grade level to find the best resources for your need: World Book, GALE ebooks and Research, Testing Prep, Homework Help, Games & Activities.
For Everyone
Your local Hardin County Public Library is ready to help educators, parents, and kids with a variety of resources including help with TEL, READS, book selections (ebooks and curbside service), videos, and more.
Tennessee R.E.A.D.S. offers over 100,000 digital e-books, audiobooks, and videos to patrons of public libraries that belong to the Regional Library System. These digital titles can be downloaded or streamed to your personal computer or a various portable devices such as smartphones, tablets or e-readers.
The excitement of learning that comes from curiosity and wonder is undeniable, and Wonderopolis helps create learning moments in everyday life—ones that fit in with dinner preparations, carpool responsibilities, a stolen moment between breakfast and the bus, or within school curriculum and education programs. From the very beginning, Wonderopolis has been lauded for our fresh approach to wonder and learning.
Searching for books with a corresponding Renaissance Accelerated Reader 360® quiz is easy with Accelerated Reader Bookfinder®. Students, teachers, parents, and librarians can search in English or Spanish using criteria such as ATOS book level or a Lexile™ measure, interest level, title, author, fiction/nonfiction, subject, award-winners, state lists, CCSS Exemplars, and more.
For more than 150 years, in print and now online, Merriam-Webster has been America’s leading and most-trusted provider of language information. Each month, our Web sites offer guidance to more than 40 million visitors. In print, our publications include Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (among the best-selling books in American history) and newly published dictionaries for English-language learners. All Merriam-Webster products and services are backed by the largest team of professional dictionary editors and writers in America, and one of the largest in the world.
For Grades PreK-5
HOMEWORK HELP AND MORE:
ABCmouse.com is a global education initiative of Age of Learning, Inc. Our goal is to help children build a strong foundation for future academic success by providing a comprehensive and engaging online curriculum to greatly assist early learners to succeed in pre-k, kindergarten, and early elementary school programs.
TEL4U is your online galaxy of eBooks, Homework Helpers, and Games & Activities brought to you by the Tennessee Electronic Library.
ONLINE BOOKS, READ ALOUD, AND EBOOKS:
Just Books Read Aloud is intended to be a resource for parents, teachers and children to easily and simply listen to a great collection of children’s books.
KidLit TV is a winner of the Parents’ Choice Gold Award, the Norton Juster Award for Devotion to Literacy, and one of the American Association of School Librarians Best Digital Tools for Teaching and Learning. KLTV is available in over 700,000 schools worldwide via our website and video distribution partners. We’re a diverse group of parents, educators, librarians, kid lit creators, and award-winning filmmakers working together to create fun new ways to reinforce an appreciation of reading that children will carry with them for the rest of their lives.
The SAG-AFTRA Foundation’s Daytime Emmy®-nominated and award-winning children’s literacy website, Storyline Online®, streams videos featuring celebrated actors reading children’s books alongside creatively produced illustrations. Readers include Oprah Winfrey, Chris Pine, Kristen Bell, Rita Moreno, Viola Davis, Jaime Camil, Kevin Costner, Lily Tomlin, Sarah Silverman, Betty White, Wanda Sykes and dozens more.
For Grades Pre-K-12
HOMEWORK HELP AND MORE:
Khan Academy offers practice exercises, instructional videos, and a personalized learning dashboard that empower learners to study at their own pace in and outside of the classroom. We tackle math, science, computing, history, art history, economics, and more, including K-14 and test preparation (SAT, Praxis, LSAT) content. We focus on skill mastery to help learners establish strong foundations, so there’s no limit to what they can learn next!
Created for kids in grades Pre-K through 8, Funbrain.com has been the leader in free educational games for kids since 1997. Funbrain offers hundreds of games, books, comics, and videos that develop skills in math, reading, problem-solving and literacy.
BrainPOP was founded in 1999 by Dr. Avraham Kadar as a creative way to explain difficult concepts to his young patients. Today, we’re a trusted learning resource supporting core and supplemental subjects, reaching millions of learners worldwide. Expanding our learning tools, and helping kids create, construct, and collaborate as they explore their world.
Education is a top priority for parents and teachers. We know that learning happens outside as well as inside the classroom, and we understand that parents need resources that deliver the facts to children in a safe learning environment. Fact Monster’s content is written and edited by experts, not outside users, assuring you that we provide trusted, reliable information. Our broad range of content includes an encyclopedia, dictionary, thesaurus, atlas, a homework center, and educational games. Fact Monster combines essential reference materials, fun facts and features, and homework help for kids. From the solar system to the world economy to educational games, Fact Monster has the info kids are seeking. Our site is COPPA and kidSAFE-certified, so you can rest assured it’s a safe place for kids to explore. Click the homework tab.
Grades 6th-12:
HippoCampus.org is a free, core academic web site that delivers rich multimedia content–videos, animations, and simulations–on general education subjects to middle-school and high-school teachers and college professors, and their students, free of charge. Teachers project HippoCampus content during classroom learning and assign it for computer labs and homework. Students use the site in the evenings for study and exam prep. Users do not need to register or log in to use the site.
The archives of Dr. Math will remain freely available on mathforum.org for the foreseeable future. MyNCTM is an online community where NCTM members can ask questions; network and connect with each other; start and join discussions; find, upload, and organize resources and documents; and interact with education experts.
EasyBib is an intuitive information literacy platform that provides citation, note taking, and research tools that are easy-to-use and educational. EasyBib is not only accurate, fast, and comprehensive, but helps educators teach and students learn how to become effective and organized researchers. We cite according to the 8th and 7th ed. of MLA, 7th ed. of APA, and 16th and 17th ed. of Chicago (9th ed. Turabian). Many of our styles are powered by CSL, the Citation Styles Language from CitationStyles.org, which are licensed under a CC-BY-SA license.