General Research Tools
Almanacs
A more elementary version of the standard Infoplease site, where you can look at features like the word of the day, today in history, or today's birthday. Searchable by subject, or browseable by subject area. Colorful and fun!
Offers several continuously updated almanacs in an attractive presentation. In addition, it includes an encyclopedia and a dictionary.
The old-fashioned almanac, with weather, planting, and fishing tips.
A good all-purpose dictionary with links to Roget's Thesaurus and dictionaries in other languages.
This Electric Library service provides basic, short articles on many topics with a searchable or browseable database. Also cites magazine articles of interest.
This encyclopedia from the Smithsonian Institution features answers to frequently asked questions about the Smithsonian and provides links to Smithsonian resources from A to Z. Most helpful in the areas of science, social studies, and history. Searchable by alphabetical index.
The famous collegiate thesaurus is here free for your use.
Writing a poem? Need help with a rhyme? This is the place for you! It also includes links to quotations, the bible, and Shakespeare.
Visual dictionary and thesaurus.
A combination dictionary and thesaurus that's excellent.
A directory aimed specifically at K-12 students, this site offers over 15,000 resources in areas students research most often.
How to do almost anything, with step-by-step instructions and shopping lists.
One of the most popular grammar resources on the web, that provides students help with sentences, paragraphs, essays, and research.
Tells you how almost anything works, from web pages to telephones.
A great online almanac, when you don't have a copy with you, but need that quick fact.
If you need to convert pounds into tons, inches into meters, or degrees Celsius into Fahrenheit, this is the site for you. It's fast and easy!
Research it! (itools)
This is it -- your one stop shop for research, which includes dictionaries, thesauruses, translation tools, biographical dictionaries, Bartlett's Quotations, maps, and the yellow pages, along with much more.
Need images for a report or presentation? This is the place for you. Created by the North Central Regional Educational Laboratory, this is a massive collection of kid-safe images. A great pre-screened archive.
Searching Tip: When you want to find information from past issues, remember to search the archives of the magazine or newspaper you're interested in.
All the current news, with a search tool in the middle of the page.
Color-coded news from multiple sources. The best!
The Internet Public Library's online newspaper database, which includes newspapers from every state in the union and over 100 countries outside the United States.
The Internet Public Library's online magazine database, which includes over 2300 titles that can be searched or browsed by subject or by title.
A newspaper search engine which allows you to search by paper name, town, city, country, or language, to see the newspapers of the day. Will also translate those in other languages.
A great source of news for kids. Includes national and international news as well as sports, and is searchable. Awesome!