Free Online Resources
Audible.com is offering free listening to audio books throughout this time. There are books for all levels of readers: children through adult including tween, teen, and classics.
Heggan library now has more options from Tumblebooks:
YouTube Learning: Links to a variety of educational videos presented on YouTube from math, science, language arts, and history. Timeline world history, National Geographic, BBC Earth, Biography, Discovery Education, and TED-Ed can all be found here. Links are grouped by general levels: age 13+, age 5+, and preschool.
YouTube: By doing some general searches like “authors reading,” you’ll find authors doing just that. There are many authors and illustrators using YouTube to present parts or all of their books, but also to offer lessons about their craft.
Suzanne Collins reading chapter one of Mockingjay
Jason Reynolds reading from Ghost
Jarod Krosoczka, Author and illustrator for children and YA books — YouTube channel lessons for students on illustrating and more
Riveted by Simon teen: free YA ebooks and excerpts to read this month
LibriVox: All FREE public domain audiobooks
Lit2Go: Lit2Go is a free online collection of stories and poems in audiobook format. Playing time and word counts are given. Each reading passage can be downloaded as a PDF.
Mind Webs: A free Internet archive of over 150 of the most classic science fiction short stories from Ursula K. Le Guin and Kurt Vonnegut to H.G. Wells.
Open Culture: 1000 free audiobooks, streams, and videos organized in alphabetical order by author with the varying formats available.
Storynory: Classics and fairytales that can be listened to and/or read if one chooses.
Scholastic Learn at Home lessons for K-12. The link to grades 6-12 now has four weeks of lessons. They’re adding as we go through this. https://classroommagazines.scholastic.com/support/learnathome.html
Free NYTimes for high schools and high schools students through July 6
Calendar of Virtual Field Trips for families
Sites for Families to use while school is closed – all grades
Growing Book by Book – mostly younger, some older – scroll through: lots of links and stories read by authors
Databases
The library provides a diverse collection of online databases. Simply click on a database to be directed to the online database in question. If you are prompted for a library card number enter your full 14 digit number with no spaces (the one exception being the Salem databases which need only the last 6 digits). If your card is not a Margaret E. Heggan Free Public Library card or your card is expired or has fines you may be unable to access a database. Contact the library if you are unsure.
- Simple search that quickly delivers relevant results
- Easy-to-browse categories organized by popular topic
- Topic overviews that provide students with a starting point for research
- Colorful, mobile-friendly design with feature areas that provide context to students
- Reading level indicators (Lexile® Measures) to simplify discovery of grade-appropriate content
- Text-to-speech for HTML articles to assist struggling readers or those learning English
- Curriculum Standards Module to help educators correlate EBSCO content quickly and easily to Common Core, state- or province-specific curriculum standards