The purpose of this "room" is to provide a virtual location
to assist students, parents, and teachers find quality resources on the Internet.

The following are subscription resources that our district has purchased for our use. You will need to have a user ID and password to access these sites. The user ID and passwords are available from Mrs. Hampton, Ms. Russell and Mrs. Wuesthoff if you do not have them.

World Book Online - http://www.worldbook.com : An on-line learning reference center that contains an Atlas, Dictionary, Encyclopedia, and other Student Resources. Our subscription even comes with a section dedicated to exploring Virginia. To access World Book using our home use subscription, click the “sign in” button at the top of the screen.

Grolier Online – www.go.grolier.com : Grolier provides access to its encyclopedias, magazines, news and more. There is also access to Grolier for kids! The user ID and passwords are available from Mrs. Hampton, Ms. Russell and Mrs. Wuesthoff if you do not have them.

SIRS – http://ars.sirs.com : SIRS is a comprehensive database for research. You can choose from SIRS Knowledge Source or SIRS Discoverer. SIRS Knowledge Source covers topics from current news, government, the arts/humanities, and everything between. SIRS Discoverer is for the younger researchers providing results for their readability.

Find it Virginia – www.finditva.com :Find It Virginia brings the library reference section and subscription services to your fingertips. Only thing you need to use this valuable resource is your public library card number.

The following Internet sites can be useful for students doing research.
Remember when searching on the Internet to always evaluate a site before accepting all the information.

Librarians Internet Index – www.LII.org : A subject directory maintained by a group of librarians. The goal of this site is to provide web sites that have been reviewed by librarian.

Mooter – www.Mooter.com : A search tool that clusters the results, sorting the results by subtopics.

Clusty – www.clusty.com : A metasearch engine that clusters the results. Sites can be previewed before following the link. Clusty also allows the user to easily view see what search engine was used to return the results.

KidsClick! – www.KidsClick.org : A web search tool developed for kids by librarians. Kids can search by keywords or subject headings. Results are geared to a younger cliental.

Ask For Kids! – www.askforkids.com : This site allows younger students to ask questions in natural language to find their results.

Fact Monster – www.factmonster.com : This kid friendly search tool also brings an atlas, almanac, dictionary and encyclopedia to your fingertips. This site does contain quite a few adds.

Pics4Learning – www.Pics4Learning.com : This site provides many pictures that are copyright friendly. If you like what you see, you can even submit your own photos that you think would be helpful to others.

How Stuff Works – www.HowStuffWorks.com : Need to know how stuff works? This site strives to explain how airplanes fly to how coffee and tea are decaffeinated.

Now that you found the information needed for the researcher, the next hurdle becomes: How do I correctly cite the source of the information?
These sites will provide the help!
Remember we need to credit the sources of our information.

Noodle Tools – www.noodletools.com : This site provides two levels of support – subscription and free. The free tools are quite helpful and easy to use. They also provide a work space for you to save your citations as you do your research. This site even checks your work for errors. For more comprehensive help, you may choose to subscribe to the complete tools.

Son of a Citation Machine – http://citationmachine.net/index.php?page=about : This site allows you to choose from a variety of print and non-print sources and then guides you through the information needed to make a citation for your bibliography.

Want to use some of our favorite places? Here there are! There are more places on our PortaPortal page. Remember to use our guest login and check it out.

	Our "Portaportal" Page - This page has links to various web sites that provide great instructional practice. NOTE: A password is required to access this page. Please see Mrs. Wuesthoff if you do not have it.
	SOLPASS - "A painless way for kids to master the facts and concepts for the Virginia Standards of Learning Tests. Prepare, Practice, Review for the Virginia SOLs and Be Successful!" NOTE: A password is required to access this page. Please see Mrs. Wuesthoff if you do not have it.
	FunBrain.com- K-8 site with lots of interactive games in a variety of subject areas.
	aaamath.com -Hundreds of pages of Basic Math Skills. Interactive Practice on every page.
	mathcats.com - Join the Math Cats in a land of creative, open-ended math explorations!
	kidshub.org - Kids Hub is a free online interactive learning center for elementary school students. It features fun educational games, puzzles, and quizzes.