Tuesday, February 24, 2015

Week 4: (Not) Just for Kids! Tumblebooks, Overdrive Kids, and World Book

This week we’re going to play! Let’s take a look at the most popular kids’ eresource at OPL: Tumblebooks. If you have little ones nearby, you may want to bring them along.

Start on OPL's kids' page. Choose Stories Out Loud, and click on Tumblebooks.

From here, you can choose to have a story read to you, watch videos about science, play games, and practice your skills in one of six non-English languages. 

The links for Story Books and Nonfiction Books will take you to a selection of stories with simple animation and voice-over narration. For those who are learning to read, Chapter Books pairs text highlighting with narration  to help with practice.

TUMBLEBOOKS CHALLENGE: What is chasing Mercy Watson on the cover of "Mercy Watson to the Rescue?"

Did you like hearing the stories out loud? Let's roll onto OPL's Overdrive Kids page, where you can download children's audiobooks and ebooks. 
From Stories Out Loud, scroll to Kids' Audiobooks and click on the link. You'll land on a custom page that Overdrive built for us featuring all of our juvenile Overdrive audiobooks. Notice the links on the left side of the page--you can browse books by rating, grade level, publisher, even by devices supported.

OVERDRIVE KIDS CHALLENGE: Who reads the audio version of "Frog and Toad Are Friends?" (hint: you don't have to download the whole book to find out)

Finally, let's take a look at World Book. World Book Online is--you guessed it--the online version of the World Book Encyclopedia. Head to the library's database page, scroll to Encyclopedias, and select World Book Online. Click the icon for Kids--you'll notice a stripe that says "New" because the Kids' page recently got a big makeover! 

Icons across the bottom of the screen tell you what you can do on WBO Kids. World of Animals takes you to information about, yup, animals. Click on the aardvark- he's my favorite. 

Activities takes you to all kinds of fun--recipes, games, logic puzzles, music, drawing, and more! 

One cool thing you can do on WBO Kids is compare two animals, countries, states, or other places. Click Compareplaces on the main WBO Kids page. Choose a country, state, continent, or other place. After you've selected one place, click the purple Compare button on the upper right. Now you can select a second place. Click the purple Compare Now! button at the bottom right, and you'll see a side by side comparison of your two locations. Wow, did you know that Laos has more than three times as many people as Gambia? Now you do!

The Pictures and Videos portion of WBO Kids is also pretty cool. I found a picture of a traditional Maasai dance, a Balinese mask dance, and a video interview with a Wampanoag person exploring whether Native American people refer to themselves as "Native Americans." There's a lot to discover here.

WORLD BOOK KIDS CHALLENGE: How many insects can an aardvark eat in one night?


Release your inner child--digitally! And bid on a prize pack.

13 comments:

  1. Cynthia Hegedus, Brookfield
    1. Tumble Books - the cover doesn't show who, but Mercy is being chased by an old woman, Eugenia.
    2. Overdrive - Frog & Toad is read by Arnold Lobel
    3. World Book - aardvarks can eat 50,000 insects in one night. I found World Book rather difficult to navigate - the back button didn't take me back to where I wanted to be.

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  2. Annabelle, Piedmont
    What Cynthia said ^

    It's true World Book is not the easiest to navigate. The answer you were looking for requires you hit, [Land Animals] first, then Aardvark, and the fact will be there. Searching the term "aardvark" takes you to a totally different listing, and the page you were referring to isn't even on there.

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  3. Brandi witcher : Piedmont

    1. An elderly women with rollers in her hair is chasing the pig. I think the soriers are a good way for kids learning to read to follow along and improve their skills.
    2. Arnold Lobel made the book frog and toad are friends. One of my favortie books to read as a kids a couple of years ago.
    3. aardvark can eat up to 50,000 termites in one night.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I thought the pig was the chaser, but at least I found the cover of Mercy Watson to the Rescue. Arnold Lobel introduces his storybook. Just to make sure, I looked at Overdrive's info on that audio title, and sure enough, the author is the narrator. I finally found the 50000 insects in one night fact by looking at World of Animals. Didn't realize that was 'squirreled' away there. I like the Compare feature.

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  5. In Tumblebooks, it is an old woman in a bathrobe with curlers in her hair chasing the pig Mercy. (We used to offer Tumblebooks to groups of adults with developmental disabilities at the Main Library...so I was familiar with them.) // In Kids Audiobooks Overdrive, I found out who the reader was by listening to the sample. I had tried every whichaway online to see the reader mentioned in print. Finally after a hint from Sally I checked the OPAC and it was mentioned in the summary. // How many insects? I only came upon this after looking at all the links and then going back and comparing aardvarks and alligators. I too liked the Compare feature for countries.

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  6. Mercy Watson is being chased by a woman in nightclothes and curlers.
    Aardvarks can eat 50,000 insects in one night
    Arnold Lobel reads his audiobook:Frog and Toad...

    ReplyDelete
  7. TUMBLEBOOKS CHALLENGE: What is chasing Mercy Watson on the cover of "Mercy Watson to the Rescue?"
    An angry looking woman in curlers.

    Who reads the audio version of "Frog and Toad Are Friends?"
    Arnold Lobel reads his book on this site.

    How many insects can an aardvark eat in one night? 50,000. I want one.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Thevaki:
    Eugenia is chasing Mercy Watson on the cover.
    Frog and Toad are Friends - written and read by Arnold Lobel.
    Aardvark can eat as many as 50,000 insects in one night.

    ReplyDelete
  9. A cranky lady in pjs & curlers is chasing Mercy the pig.
    Arnold Lobel reads Frog and Toad Are Friends.
    An aardvark can eat 50,000 bugs in one night.

    ReplyDelete
  10. 1. Tumble Books: An old woman named Eugenia is chasing Mercy.
    2. Overdrive: Frog & Toad is written and read by Arnold Lobel (I wonder if this is the same version I had as a kid on cassette...)
    3. World Book: Aardvarks can eat 50,000 insects in one night.

    ReplyDelete
  11. mercy is being chased by an ole lady
    Arnold lobel is reading toad & frog
    an aardvark can eat up to 50,00 insects at nite.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Mercy Watson is being chased by an angry person in a red dress and curlers.

    Frog and Toad are Friends is read by Arthur Lobel.

    An aardvark can devour as many as 50,000 insects in one night.

    ReplyDelete