If you’re like me, back-to-school time always brews up a wild stew of emotions. I’m proud and happy to see my kids growing, learning, and engaging in new educational and extracurricular challenges, but I’m also worried, excited, and fraught. And, if we’re being honest, maybe just the tiniest bit thrilled (remember the old Staples “it’s the most wonderful time of the year” commercial?).
Once my kids find their groove and I regain my equilibrium, there is less concern for what the year might bring and more for finding the resources they need to succeed. While I’m a great person to ask for writing help, I am most definitely not the tutor you want for physics or chemistry.
That’s where your library can help: we have an incredible array of student learning resources, and they’re all literally just a click away.
Is there a preschooler or early learner in your home? The award-winning ABCmouse.com online learning program is available free with your library card. It’s perfect for engaging your youngster with music, art, and games to make learning fun! And if you haven’t met our mascot Percy Unicorn yet, you can find him on our website. His themed monthly e-newsletter offers early learning tips, book recommendations, games, and more for little learners and their grown-ups.
As students get older, study aids can help them retain the new material they’re learning. Your library offers a wide variety of flashcards and workbooks that you can borrow rather than buy, covering everything from sight words, telling time, and basic math to earth sciences, computer science, and coding.
If your student needs a tutor, you’ll be thrilled to discover BrainFuse. Brainfuse offers live online tutoring in any subject, every day from 2-11 p.m.! Expert writing help is available through the Writing Lab, and Spanish and French language learners can take advantage of assistance in the BrainFuse Language Lab. Students can even schedule time in a virtual room to collaborate on a class project. BrainFuse serves students from elementary school all the way through college.
These are just a few of our most popular student learning resources, but you’ll find dozens more listed on our Student Learning page at www.delawarelibrary.org/student. If you can’t find what you need there, please ask your friendly local experts – our librarians are here to help! Call your local Delaware County District Library branch, stop in and visit, or email us at [email protected]. We’re here to help make this the best year ever for all the students (and caregivers) in our community, and we’re always glad you asked!
While we love all of our Delaware County schools, we thought we’d highlight a few of our favorite fictional schools this week! Maybe you or your student will find a new favorite among them.
• Ever wanted to ride a broomstick or turn an enemy into a toad? Then Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is the place for you! Not just for kids, J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series holds a special place in many readers’ hearts. The films and audiobooks are pretty great, too.
• Camp Halfblood focuses more on fighting skills than mathematics, but you’ll have to be a demigod to attend. Rick Riordan’s “Percy Jackson and the Olympians” is the first entry in the series; it’s getting a new book-to-screen treatment from Disney+ in 2024.
• A school bus that can travel to outer space or go back in time? Who wouldn’t want that?! Best-teacher-ever Ms. Frizzle takes her Walkerville Elementary classes on the field trips of a lifetime in the Magic School Bus. Kids will enjoy the animated TV series and the books by Joanna Cole.
• In Orson Scott Card’s popular sci-fi novel (and film adaptation) “Ender’s Game,” our young hero is taken from his home and sent to Battle School – which just happens to be in Earth orbit. While we would’ve been homesick, zero gravity war games are a pretty great consolation prize.
• If you’re very clever, love puzzles and mysteries, and are a rule-breaker to boot, The Learning Institute for the Very Enlightened might be for you. Go on an undercover adventure with some talented kids in “The Mysterious Benedict Society” by Trenton Lee Stewart; there are four books in the series to enjoy.
If you have a question that you would like to see answered in this column, mail it to Jayna McDaniel-Browning, Delaware County District Library, 84 E. Winter St., Delaware, OH 43015, or call us at 740-362-3861. You can also email your questions by visiting the library’s web site at www.delawarelibrary.org or directly to Jayna at [email protected]. No matter how you contact us, we’re always glad you asked!
