Books-The Digital Version

In my home, I have a four year old (in 4 days) and a five year old that love books. (Thank goodness!)  We read and read and read and read.  We spend a lot of time at our local bookstore down the street.  There really is just something about holding those real books, turning those pages, and spending the time to just examine the pictures.  But I have also found that sometimes they enjoy listening to another reader.

And the same is true for my students.

Today I wanted to share some websites that may help you to bring more books and readers into your classroom.



http://www.wegivebooks.org/

This is my #1 go-to website for books.  We Give Books is a free online library of children’s books that enables your kids to help other children around the world while they’re reading.  Yep...FREE!  You do need to set up an account to access all the books (over 150 titles).  Some of the books are great for read-alouds, some selections are for independent reading, and a good mix of non-fiction and fiction.

Here are some exampes:
See How They Grow series
Max and Ruby
SkippyJon Jones
DK nonfiction readers
Ladybug Girl



http://ngexplorer.cengage.com/ngyoungexplorer/index.html

National Geographic Young Explorers allows you to read many of their classroom magazine issues for K and 1st grade for FREE.  The students can actually click the little audio icon and it is read to them.  I am thinking....listening center with a graphic organizer or research material for informational writing!



http://www.storylineonline.net/

Storyline Online is also FREE!  There are 25 books listed on this website that are read by famous individuals.  It is a great way to listen to a fluent reader.  One particularly helpful part of this website is that these videos are on SchoolTube if your school has blocked YouTube.  Just click on the "Comments and Questions" icon.  Some of the books on the website are:
The Rainbow Fish
Stellaluna
Brave Irene
A Bad Case of Stripes


http://www.readtomelv.com/

Read to Me has 18 videos of books being read by famous people.  It is also free!  Duck and Cover, Fancy Nancy, and Duck Soup are just a few of the books you will find on this site.




http://en.childrenslibrary.org/

This is the International Children's Digital Library.  The books available on this site are multi-cultural and available in different languages.  It is a non-profit organization and their mission is to help children respect diverse cultures and exhibit tolerance.  One feature I love about this site is the way that you can search through their books.  Look at this:

http://www.childrenslibrary.org/icdl/SimpleSearchCategory?ilang=English

There are so many different options.  I found that there are 4,642 different books to search through!




http://www.kiddierecords.com/

Kiddie Records is a new website to me.  After playing around with it, I am really excited to use it.  This site is free also but will take you back in time!  It is filled with audio recording from "long ago."  Students will need to listen to and visualize the stories that are being read.  I am not even sure how many different recordings there are....but there are A LOT!



http://tumblebooks.com/
Tumble Books is an amazing resource but slightly more tricky.  It is not free...BUT...most libraries have a subscription and you can access all the resources that way for FREE.  I know I was able to get to all the books on this site through my local library.  And it looked like this:

But this is just one of the "clouds" offered.  If you look above, there are books for younger children, older children, and some great non-fiction videos.  I found a public library to have some good descriptions of what Tumble Books can offer.  Click HERE to view that website.



onlinebooksforchildren.com

This is another free site that is full of books from many different sources.  I did not see any nonfiction titles but many, many fiction titles.  Some are read aloud to you and some are not.  But I thought the set up was very user friendly!

As I was typing out this post, I did A LOT of research. I started to get confused by what all of these websites had to offer.  So I wanted to create a quick guide so that you could find what would work for your students.


I hope you find this to be helpful.  Do you have any websites that you like to use?






6 comments

  1. We like to use Oxford Owl - http://www.oxfordowl.co.uk

    cheriemae@gmail.com

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you so much for this link! I can't wait to try it out.

      Delete
  2. Going to check out some more new-to-me sites. We finally got our own Tumblebooks membership, so I don't have to 'borrow' a subscription from the library any longer!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That is so exciting that you have a membership!! I hope you find some other ones that you like!

      Delete
  3. Wow! What a terrific chart! Thank you for a wonderful resource. I can't wait to try out every site.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Debbie-
      Thanks so much!! I know that I will be using this chart next year as I plan! :)

      Delete