E. R. Dickson Media Center

Students in Grades 1-5 learn to use Search Stations to locate books in our Media Center

Welcome to the E. R. Dickson Library Media Center!

Drop by our beautiful and spacious Media Center! Our Media Center has over 17,000 books to check out, along with 9 search stations to serve our students. Our Media Center is available for reference work or just to relax and read. Come by and check out our facility!

BOOK LIMITS

Kindergarten students select one book at a time during their Storytime sessions.

Students in Grades 1-5 may check out up to 2 books at one time for 1 week at a time.

Books needed past the due date must be renewed.  After a 10 day grace period, a $.05/day fine will be charged for overdue books.

Lost or damaged books must be paid for to maintain borrowing privileges.

Helpful Links

The Alabama Virtual Library is a wonderful research tool for the citizens of Alabama. It includes: magazines, dictionaries, encyclopedias, and more!

Homework Alabama provides live homework help every day Sunday - Thursday 3 PM - 10 PM.  Connect with one-to-one real tutors for Grades 4-12 & College Intro in Science, Math, English & Social Studies.

Schoolwork Helpers: Fast help for smart students!

• Merriam-Webster Dictionary and thesaurus
• Encyclopedia Britannica
• Thesaurus (from Thesaurus.com)

Social Studies

Alabama Department of Archives and History
Great sections for teachers, students, and "About Alabama."Alabama Museum of Natural History
The museum on the University of Alabama's campus.Moundville Archaeological Park
A virtual tour of this park in Hale County, AL.The Paul W. Bryant Museum

The museum on the University of Alabama's campus.Alabama's Governor's Office
Browse press releases, visit the image gallery, or read the latest news from Alabama's Governor, Bob Riley.

State of Alabama Official Site
Official website of the state of Alabama supplies access to government offices and agencies, educational departments and related entities.

White House
Visit the official home page of the White House. Includes links to articles, federal services, current news events and activities for kids.

Washington D.C. Monuments Visit our national monuments

America’s Story from America’s Library Join America at play and discover who played Jackie Robinson in The Jackie Robinson Story. Play the Dynamic Presidents game and learn more about Thomas Jefferson. Students can jump to the past and discover Colonial America, then travel to the present. The site is offered through the Library of Congress and uses primary resources to expose the fun in history.

Ben’s Guide to the U.S. Government for Kids Benjamin Franklin introduces students to the American government. He illustrates how laws are made, explains the branches of government, and much more.

Library of Congress
Search the Library of Congress catalogs, connect with the US copyright office, get tour information, or ask a librarian a question.

Smithsonian Institute
Take a virtual tour of the Smithsonian Institute or find information on its many divisions, events, and new exhibits.

African American Sites

Exploratorium

History Channel Exhibits History Channels online museum explores the past and puts it on display through collections such as Save Our History; Save Our Sounds and Dear Home: Letters from World War II

National Museum of American History

Walt Disney Family Museum Online museum on the history of Disney includes a main collection, special exhibits, and education section with activities.

Math

Funbrain Games for students and resources for parents and teachers

Harcourt
Math games for students by grade level.

Math Games
Factors and LCM

Science

Ace on the Case: Secrets at Sea fun online investigative game exploring topics in Ocean Science. Learn about oceanography, marine animals, and water pollution as you collect clues to solve a mystery.

Animal Planet Animal-related family programming

Weather Channel Weather-related programming and meteorology specials

Project SafeSide: Floods and Flash Floods

American Icons: Grand Canyon

Yavapai Point Webcam Grand Canyon National Park

Planets Site offers a quiz, timeline of the universe, video clips, an interactive diagram of the Mars Rover, a map of Mars, and more.

Science and Space Latest findings of scientists, news about the space program, and links to nature webcams and web sites focused on space exploration.

Tiny Planets Find out how things work, sharpen observation skills, test new ideas in light, color, animation, sound and the water cycle.

Language Arts

Word Central
Learn a new word everyday! Visit Word Central to become a Word Star!

Magical Kingdom Stories: many interactive folktales  

Alfie's Fairy Tales to select and view 

Whootie Owl: read, listen to, talk about and illustrate online stories from around the world

Storyplace: The Children's Digital Library: Thematic stories and online activities to complete

FunBrain.com Word Activities

Yahooligans Word Games IndexAuthors and Illustrators on the Web
Great website hosted by the University of Calgary

Children's Authors and Illustrators
Gives a biography and links for authors.

Kidsread
Biographies and games featuring authors

Yahooligans
Provides links to authors

Tedd Arnold Read answers to questions from other kids, post your own illustrations in the art gallery, look at works in progress, access step by step drawing instructions and invite the illustrator to come to your school. 

Jan Brett: Participate in contests, listen to her speak, and watch Jan Brett video descriptions of some of her stories

Eric Carle Send snail mail, read answers to kids questions, and find out about craft activities that help you create illustrations like this author

Jane Cutler: Write a review of one of her books that gets posted online at Amazon.com

Jean Craighead George: Read answers to letters from children, access great biographical information in the form of text, audio, video and photographs.

Magic Tree House Series from Random House gives students access to related fictional books and non fictional web sites as well as new research guides to help plan an entire unit. This is a great example of how to link trade books and the Internet together for students.

Magazines Online

 National Geographic Kids
The magazine's website

Time for Kids includes links to current event articles about politics, science, and kids views. Link to the latest online issues of World Report, News Scoop and special issues, all designed for kids.

World Magazine for Kids which has similar resources, but links to articles from previous issues of the magazine.

Smithsonian Magazine for Kids includes What's New, email message topics, facts & photos and feature articles about science, animals, personalities, sports, the arts, worldwide, history, air and space

Just for Fun

Activity Center: Paint & Play Online coloring book with pictures of familiar characters

Enchanted Learning : Zoom Learning Units, Little Explorers Picture Dictionary (with vocabulary in five languages!), hundreds of animals printouts, great graphics, Rebus Nursery Rhymes, Easy Crafts, Geography Units, coloring pages and even activities for preschoolers. Reading level gets harder as you follow more links within their site, and then eventually link to outside resources to extend even further. There's enough to keep your students, Grades K-6, busy and learning all year long

Scholastic for Kids
Games, reading, new adventures and favorite characters

Homework Help

 Alabama Virtual Library
The Alabama Virtual Library provides all students, teachers, and citizens of the State of Alabama with online access to essential library and information resources. It is primarily a group of online databases that have magazine, journal, and newspaper articles for research. Students MUST have an AVL card to access the virtual library at home. Please ask your Library Media Specialist for one.

Xpeditions-National Geographic Locate a maps for many countries

Ask Jeeves
Your very own information valet - allows you to ask a question in plain English and responds with one site that matches your request.

Britannica.com
Browse the complete Encyclopedia Britannica, read world news or visit the Britannica store.

MLA Citation
If you need help citing your research papers, this website might be helpful.

Fact Monster
Encyclopedia, dictionary and almanac geared for kids is produced by Information Please. With news stories and a homework help section.

Find Articles
Offers full-text news articles and features from over 300 publications. Allows for keyword searches and refining searches by subject or magazine.

Clip Art

Awesome Clip Art for Kids

Clip Art Gallery - Sometimes navigating through clip art Web sites can be quite daunting. This Web site allows for easy navigation for a teacher or students to quickly find some needed clip art.

Free Education Clip Art from Teachnet.com - Download free educational clip art from Teachnet! Images are categorized into animals, food, holidays and seasonal, school mascots, school, recreation, miscellaneous, and headers.

TeacherFiles.com Educational Clip Art - Explore this collection of clip art that has been gathered from copyright free sites all over the Web. Images are categorized for easy browsing.

Teacher Resources

State of Alabama Department of Education
Learn about Alabama's certification requirements and find educational links and a directory of publications.

Microsoft Word - Internet4Classrooms hosts this extensive tutorial for students. Many great skills are presented at this Web site for both PC and Macintosh platforms.

What Do You See? - Clip art is an integral part of this language arts lesson plan. Students can use Word to complete this task! There are also links to a scavenger hunt, assessment and management for the lesson, ways to extend the lesson and adapt the lesson.

Technological Advances in Communication - This is another great lesson that incorporates images with written work. Many teacher resources are provided to assist with implementing the lesson. Written for grades 5 and up, this lesson can also be adapted.

Search Engines

KidsClick!
Selected websites for children. Search for select subjects.

Yahooligans
Search the web or choose by subject lists.

Alta Vista
Search engine and directory has indexed millions of sites. Users can perform complex searches or get personalized news and stock quotes.

Excite
Use this well-known service to search by keyword or text strings, or browse the categories of reviewed sites.

Google
Search engine returns keyword search results based on relevance of content and the number of links to a particular URL from other sites.

Ask Jeeves for Kids: ask real questions and get help narrowing your search

Kids Online Resources - Another great safe resource for kids, teachers, and parents! Many excellent resources are available here that cover a wide range of topics.

Great Web Sites for Kids - The American Library Association hosts this site that has reviewed and categorized links for kids. They also present the Site of the Month!

KidsSpace Browse through topics for kids on the Internet Public Library

Libraries

Library of Congress

Alabama Virtual Library

University of South Alabama Library

New York Public

Internet Public Library

Mobile Public Library