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Kids & Online Learning

Featured Databases

 

BC & Canada

  • Canadiana provides access to the digital collections of Canada’s libraries, museums, and archives. It’s a great single source for Canada’s documentary heritage for researchers, students, and the general public. Now surpassing the 60 million-page mark, it opens the door to books, journals, newspapers, government documents, photographs, maps, post cards, sheet music, audio and video files about our nation’s heritage.
  • Historica Canada – the authoritative source for all things Canadian.  Website includes new interactive features such as timelines, a Canada Tweets feed that aggregates updates from history-making Canadians, curated content exhibits and a user-generated content map that invites Canadians to share their own stories
  • Historical Photographs Collection - Ever-growing digital collection of historical photographs, hosted and maintained by the Vancouver Public Library.
  • KnowBC (Full Access at Library Only) - over a dozen books that cover a substantial number of topics including Indigenous history, marine life, British Columbia's role in World War I, and much more.
  • Royal BC Museum - Learning Portal - A place for learners of all ages to explore British Columbia’s natural and human history through the Royal BC Museum collections.

Educational

  • Canada Learning Code - Numerous online or in-person programming workshops, free of charge. Different workshops for all ages and types of learners, on every topic from website design, to artificial intelligence, to internet safety and more! Includes resources for educators.
  • Chrome Music Lab - Explore basic music and sound concepts with these AI enhanced activities from Experiments with Google, a platform showcasing coding projects from coders around the world.
  • Funbrain Games - Created for kids in grades Pre-K through 8, Funbrain 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.
  • ICC Kids (Inuit Circumpolar Council) – Hey, do you want to learn some cool things about Inuit?
  • Indigenous (CBC Kids) – Facts, history, games and more.
  • Indigenous Games – The Indigenous Games takes all people into account with great consideration to recognize other’s beliefs and practices. “There isn’t a right way or wrong way to play the games, just different ways that reflect different societies”. Game guidelines in both video and print formats.
  • Interland - Kids can play their way to being Internet Awesome with Interland, an online adventure that puts the key lessons of digital safety into hands-on practice with four game levels.
  • Traditional Inuit Games – These were gathered during a project by Grade 6 students at Aqsarniit School in Iqaliut, Nunavut.
  • Walking Together: First Nations, Métis and Inuit Perspectives in Curriculum (Learn Alberta) – Teacher resource includes links to worldviews, oral traditions, Elders, culture and language, kinship, etc.

Health & Wellness

  • Amaze - Provides young adolescents around the globe with medically accurate, age-appropriate, affirming, and honest sex education they can access directly online—regardless of where they live or what school they attend. Also assists parents, guardians, educators, and health care providers around the globe to communicate effectively and honestly about sex and sexuality with the children and adolescents in their lives.
  • Families Change - Age-appropriate information to guide you through separation and divorce. Be sure the information is correct for your province. Select your age group and explore content in others sections too.
  • KidsHealth - All about how the body works, homework help, and more – just for kids.
  • Health Canada - Youth - Your health is important. Get the facts on smoking, drugs, sex, mental health, and more.

Internet Safety

  • 49th Kids – huge database that can be searched by genre, age range, grade level or theme. Includes curated lists such as: Indigenous, award winners, refugees, and environment. A great resource for teachers and parents and teacher/parents!
  • Childnet - in partnership with others around the world to help make the internet a great and safe place for children. Many great resources and sites.
  • Common Sense Media – provides reviews and age suggestions for parents regarding books, movies and games. Discover media you feel good about sharing with your kids and students.
  • Notable Children's Digital Media (ALSC) - A list of notable websites for children under 14, reviewed and compiled by a divisional committee of the American Library Association.
  • RCMP - Internet Safety Resources - Resources for youth about staying safe on the internet from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

Learning

  • GreenFILE - is a free database with an environmental focus, containing accessible information on topics ranging from global warming to recycling to alternate fuel sources and beyond.
  • Kahn 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. Topics include math, science, computing, history, art history, economics, etc., as well as grades K-14 and test preparation (SAT, Praxis, LSAT) content. *Need to create an account!
  • Learn Free - Over 200 free, online tutorials on a large variety of topics in numerous languages from the Goodwill Community Foundation.
  • Media Smarts - Games and resources to support digital and media literacy in kids and teens.
  • National Geographic Kids - Interactive science learning with videos, games, and articles.
  • PBS Kids - Educational games and videos for children.
  • TED Ed - TED-Ed is TED’s youth and education initiative. Includes resources for students, educators, and parents.
  • Warrior Kids (podcast) – Please join us every week as we talk about everything Indigenous and share each other’s stories about what warrior kids are doing to protect our peoples and the planet.

Literacy

  • Reading Rockets - A national public media literacy initiative offering information and resources on how young kids learn to read, why so many struggle, and how caring adults can help.
  • Indigenous Storybooks – Indigenous Storybooks is a Canadian website for children, families, community members, and educators. Inspired by the open-licensed stories from Little Cree Books, this project aims to make the text, images, and audio of stories available in Indigenous languages as well as English, French, and the most widely spoken immigrant and refugee languages of Canada. A story that is read in English or French at school can be read in ancestral languages by parents and children at home. In this way, Indigenous Storybooks provides access to stories in ancestral languages as well as English and French. Similarly, the audio versions of the stories can help beginning readers and language learners make the important connection between speech and text. Here is a video introducing the Indigenous Storybooks project.
  • Storybooks Canada – Storybooks Canada is a free open educational resource that promotes literacy and language learning in homes, schools, and communities. It makes 40 stories from the African Storybook available with text and audio in English, French, and the most widely spoken immigrant and refugee languages of Canada. We are also developing Indigenous Storybooks and the Global Storybooks literacy portal.