Library

Welcome to the Laurel Magnet School Library!

Hi! I'm Mrs. Windes. I'm glad you are here.
You can contact me by calling 714-529-2520

Our Philosophy: Be Curious!

Laurel Elementary Magnet School Library and Innovation Lab strives to provide intellectual and physical access to information, literature and technological resources. We do this by promoting a learning environment that encourages independence and competency, so students can face challenges in their academic and professional lives.

Follett screenshot

Click HERE to access Follett Destiny, our library catalog.

In Destiny, you can:
1. Find up-to-date status for any of the books we have in the library.
2. Put any books on hold by signing in with the student's Google sign-in.

3. Search for books available in our library by subject, title, author or series.

Innovation Lab and Library Hours for Students

Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday:

8:00am - 3:00pm

Wednesday:

8:00am - 1:30pm

The Media Center is open entry (i.e. students are able to come at any time with teacher permission), plus each student is scheduled to visit once a week with their respective classes. Students are encouraged to come and go to manage their book check outs or enjoy quiet play time whenever the schedule or their teacher permits them. If there is a class in the library when they come, students are sometimes encouraged to return during an unscheduled time to take care of their materials.

Donations

The Library and Innovation Lab is dependent on PTA donations and Scholastic Book Fair proceeds for updating its materials. Thanks to this support, we've been able to add many new books to update the library's offerings.
Book donations are always welcome, and will either be placed into library circulation, offered through the little free library for students, or given out at the summer book swap.

Student Resources

Online Fun Educational Links:

National Geographic for Kids - https://kids.nationalgeographic.com/

A classic! Animals, videos, games. What else could a kid want?

Time Magazine for Kids - https://www.timeforkids.com/

For the rest of the 2020 school year at home, the short (some are very short!) articles are free and are arranged by grade levels. Take a look for interesting materials; a glance this week shows articles on pizza, corona virus, and doing improvisation comedy.

World Fact Book - https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/

This site is run by the CIA (super cool!) and is not specifically for education, but is interesting for those kids who like to poke around and find out new things about new places. Maps, one-page info sheets about a ton of countries, and more!

PBS Kids - https://pbskids.org/

A kid classic, with games and videos.

Wonderopolis - https://wonderopolis.org/

This site is great for exploration for the curious kid; today's wonder question (#2563) was "Who was Elvis Presley?" And since there are 2562 questions that I've missed, and I'm sure many to come later, that's a lot of information! "What is a Yeti crab? (#2561)" and "What is inflation? (#2562)" are all spelled out in easy-to-understand text and graphics.

Smithsonian Museum for Kids - https://learninglab.si.edu/

Ah, the Smithsonian. I went there when I was 5 and still remember the amazing-ness of the institution. Go visit without the hassle of a plane, packing, and purchasing meals. There are more than 6,474 learning lab collections from "Design a Bus Stop" to a collection of Spoken Word and Poetry. There are more than 5 million photos of items -- along with information about them -- in their collections with information; enough to keep anyone busy for a while.

Research Sites:

Docs Teach - https://www.docsteach.org/documents

Really neat site that lets a student search for primary sources by phrase, word and partial word for documents from the National Archives. Geared to older kids.

Kid Friendly Search - http://www.kidfriendlysearch.com/Kid_Friendly.htm

This is a collection of kid search sites that weed out, well, the stuff kids don't need to search for, as well as stuff that comes up when a kid isn't searching for undesirable subjects anyway. Kid search sites powered by Google, DK Educational, Fact Monster from Information Please, among a few others provide great options for kids to do research for projects at home.

Downloadable or Online FREE books:

Read Print - http://www.readprint.com/

Thousands of online books to read for free (mostly classics)! Got that high-level reader? Find Jane Austen, Agatha Christie, Shakespeare, and more here.

Project Gutenberg - https://www.gutenberg.org/

The giant, the indomitable collection of more than 60,000 books. All free, all the time. Heaven.

Many Books - https://manybooks.net/

Again, thousands of books, searchable by genre. This site has public domain young readers as well as public domain and contemporary adult books.

The Literature Network - http://www.online-literature.com/

These books are organized by a list of author names, and there are also *gasp!* quizzes available to test comprehension for those high-level readers. For this reason alone, don't tell the kids I sent you here; they will never speak to me again.

Free Computer Books - http://freecomputerbooks.com/

For the budding programmer: free computer books explaining Python Pro, Java, etc. Not really kid level stuff, unless your kid is a genius. But we do have some very bright kids here at Laurel, and I am assuming they have bright siblings and parents, too, that may find this site useful.

Librivox - https://librivox.org/

For those that are looking for audiobooks, this is a goldmine of public domain books that you can entertain the troops with on that long car trip. Search the eclectic collection by title and you will stumble upon Time Machine by H.G. Wells or such arcane titles as The Haunted Organist of Hurly Burly and other Stories. If you have extra time, or are trying to break into voiceover work, they are looking for volunteers to read, too!