Skokie Public Library Kids
Grades 1-5
Our place. Your place. Any place.
Your Skokie Public Library card is THE ticket to so many things at your Library and on the Web.
- Work at school or home on research projects and homework, or connect with an online tutor
- Meet in the Library to use computers and study rooms, join a program or activity, or look up something in a school textbook
- Explore from anywhere for book lists and recommendations, photos from Library programs, online activities, and our Schedule of Library Library Events
No card? No problem! You can get one if you live in Skokie. Just check here to see what you need to bring and then stop by the Library with your parent or legal guardian to fill out an application.
Skokie school students: If you don't know your barcode number or don't have a Skokie Public Library card, please see your teacher or school librarian.
Web resource 
Available with Skokie Public Library card 
Available in Library only
Work at School or Home
You'll need your Skokie Public Library barcode number if you're not inside the Library when you click some of these links...
Are you looking for some after-school help with math, science, English, or social studies? 
Try Live Homework Help for expert online tutoring. No, it's not a robot. It's a bunch of really smart teachers, librarians, and college students from all around the country who are available every day from 3:00 to 10:00pm Skokie time. A SkillsCenter Resource Library is open all day and night. (Yes, the SkillsCenter Resource Library is a robot.)
Encyclopedias, Dictionaries, and Research Tools
- Britannica for Kids has a little bit of everything for all kinds of homework. Britannica Global Reference Center has encyclopedias written in Chinese, French, Japanese, Korean, and Spanish.
- Discovery Education Homework Help will help you with math, science, English, social studies, writing, and grammar; addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.
- Gale Virtual Reference Library has hundreds of full text sources for studying the arts, writing biographies, learning about history, researching science, and much more.
- World Book Online for Kids brings the big encyclopedia to life with colorful pictures and easy-to-read entries and a wealth of engaging games, interactive tools, and activities.
- America's Story has activities and information about famous Americans, the 50 states, sports and hobbies, decades, and music from America's past.
- American History in Video has thousands of videos about
American history. The collection includes documentaries and series from The History Channel, A&E Network, and Biography Channel. You can even make your own video
clips and link to them from a PowerPoint presentation.
- Chicago Tribune: 1849 to the present includes articles, photographs, cartoons, death notices, and advertisements from the full text of the Chicago Tribune newspaper.
- Current Biography Illustrated provides access to profiles of celebrities, politicians, business people, writers, actors, sports figures, artists, scientists, and many other notable figures and newsmakers from the 1940s to the present.
- Electronic Encyclopedia of Chicago is the online version of the Encyclopedia of Chicago (available for in-Library use at the Youth Services desk). It contains articles, photos, maps, and newspapers related to the history of Chicago.
Language, Literature, and Poetry
- Columbia Granger's World of Poetry is an index to more than 90,000 poems, including the full text of 8,500 classic poems and quotations from 1,500 additional poems. Try the Listening Room for text, audio, and commentary about poems and short biographies of their authors.
- English Vocabulary Building Games is a fun way to practice spelling, phonics, and vocabulary skills.
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NEW! Try MUZZY Online
language learning!The Internet Picture Dictionary is an online picture dictionary for students learning English, French, German, Spanish, and Italian. - Mango Languages makes it fun to learn English and world languages. Try the Basic courses to learn simple words and phrases, or the Complete courses to learn grammar skills and more. Click the Translate button if you need to translate text from one language to another.
- MUZZY Online uses games and cartoon stories to teach English, French, Italian, German, or Spanish.
- Visual Thesaurus uses word maps to show the different meanings of a word, related words, and how words are pronounced.
Magazines, News, and Current Events
- Articles from Magazines & Newspapers on our website is where you'll find links to the Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago Tribune and newspapers from Skokie and around the world.
- Kids Search has news, information, articles, and pictures about animals, art and music, geography, health, language arts, math, science, social studies, and sports. Go ahead... give it a click!
- NewspaperDirect PressDisplay allows instant access to daily newspapers from more than 55 countries in 33 languages.
- Searchasaurus is another way to search for magazine and newspaper articles about animals, art and music, health, history, people and places, science and math, sports, and stories. There's also a dictionary and image collection.
- CAMIO Catalog of Art Museum Images Online contains photos of more than 90,000 works of art
from museums around the world. The collection includes examples of Asian, African, Latin American, and Western art; paintings, sculpture, decorative and everyday objects; prints, drawings and watercolors; jewelry and costumes; textiles, books, installations, and architecture; plus audio-video and mixed media. All of the photos can be used for school projects and presentations.
- Music Online contains thousands of music tracks for listening online. Spice up a social studies report with facts and information about music from around the world. Or browse the Historical Events collection to find a soundtrack for a class reenactment of the American Revolution!
- Naxos Music Library has classical, jazz, and world music that you can listen to at your computer. Check out the Junior Section to play while you learn about classical music, composers, instruments of the orchestra, and how to read music.
- New York Philharmonic Kidzone is a fun place to learn about classical musicians and composers, hear the sounds of different musical instruments, listen to music written by other kids, and more!
- Children's Literature: Meet Authors/Illustrators is a very long list of interviews with authors and illustrators. The site also has links to many of the authors' and illustrators' websites.
- Early World of Learning has activities to help build vocabulary, comprehension, phonics, and reading skills
- Juvenile Series and Sequels will help you find the order of titles in a book series.
- NoveList K-8 is a guide to fiction books for kids. Find your favorite books and series or discover something new by searching for similar authors, subjects, or award-winning titles. (Librarians and teachers use this one all the time!)
- You can download eLibrary materials and load them onto your computer, eReader, or smart phone.
- Something about the Author has information about more than 12,000 authors and illustrators who write books for kids and teens. This is a great place to find what you need for that biography about your favorite author.
- TeachingBooks.net takes you behind the scenes and into the studios where books are written and illustrated. Watch a video, listen to a booktalk, or click Author Websites for links to the personal websites of your favorite authors.
- TumbleBook Library for Kids is a library of picture books, chapter books, puzzles, and quizzes. Read a story and turn the pages by yourself or sit back and let the TumbleBook read to you and turn the pages.
- Atomic Training contains short videos explaining specific tasks in many of the mostpopular software applications in use today.
The videos may be watched in sequence like a course, or watched individually to learn a specific part of a program.
- Discovery Education Science Fair Central is a complete guide to planning a science fair project.
- Science Online contains scientific information in all areas of science: experiments, videos, diagrams, articles, and biographies of famous scientists.
- The Age of Exploration and Discovery: 1450-1700 is a Homework Helper subject guide to books, websites, and a glossary for projects and reports.
- Colonial America: 1587-1763 is a Homework Helper subject guide to books and online resources about Colonial America.
- CultureGrams Online is all about customs, lifestyles, background, daily life, and culture of people in 187 countries and all 50 United States. Explore the World Edition for detailed cultural information on more than 200 countries.
- Kids.gov links to over 2,000 educational and information Web pages from government agencies, schools, and educational organizations. There's a section with links especially for kids in grades K to 5.
- Native American Tribes of North America is a Homework Helper subject guide to books, online resources, and museums to explore in the Chicago area.
- Google Translate helps you translate text, documents, and websites from one language to another.
- Mango Languages makes it fun to learn English and world languages. Try the Basic courses to learn simple words and phrases, or the Complete courses to learn grammar skills and more. Click the Translate button if you need to translate text from one language to another.
- MUZZY Online uses games and cartoon stories to teach English, French, Italian, German, or Spanish.
Meet in the Library
You'll need your library card or school I.D. for some of these things. You'll also need to bring a grown-up if you're under 8 years old. So bring both, OK?
Activities and programs
Reading clubs, author visits, computer classes, movies, video game tournaments, performances. Ask a grown-up to help you sign up online or at the Youth Services desk.- Craft Room
Space to spread out and work on gluey, glittery school projects. Try a craft or play board and card games, too. - Game computers
Two computers, lots of games. Sorry, no Internet. - Group study rooms
Up to four kids in one of four rooms for up to two hours. Grown-ups must be accompanied by a kid. Bring your library card or school ID. - Homework computers
Five computers, one printer, full access to the Library's catalog, website, and research databases. - Reference collection
Read, learn, and take good notes because you can't take these books home. This is also where we keep our pop-up books! - School textbooks to use in the Library
Yes, we might have yours. Check the list and come on in with your library card or school ID. - Youth computer lab, study suite, and digital media lab
Fourteen computers with Internet and Word, Excel, and PowerPoint; a couple of color printers, and one awesome Computer Assistant at your service. Bring your Library card or school ID (and a grown-up if you're under 8 years old). The Digital Media Lab has two iMac computers, audio and video equipment, and a selection of multimedia software. Bring your Library card. Parent permission and a DML Access Card is also required for students over 8 years old who wish to work independently.
Explore from Anywhere
No library card required. Ever.
- Explore children's Authors, Illustrators & Awards
- Find your next favorite book on one of our Booklists
- Join the conversation on The Explorer, Skokie Public Library's blog for kids
- See yourself or someone you know in our Flickr photostream of Library activities and events
- Find some Fun, Games & Reading on the Web for kids of all ages
- Check out the Kids' Books We Love recommended by Youth Services staff
- Print our very own coloring book, grab your crayons, and color along as David and Rachel visit Skokie Public Library!
- See what's on our Schedule of Library Events and find out how to join the fun
