Class Tours and Visits

Class Visits -Find out how you can get a class visit from your local Peoria Public Librarian. Call (309) 497-2143 to ask for more information about scheduling a librarian to come to your class to talk about the library, give a fun booktalk or have a storytime for the youngest classes.

Library Tours – Peoria Public Library is happy to have students of all ages visit the library to learn and grow. Our tours are age-oriented with storytimes for the youngest classes and research tours for high school and college classes. Call (309) 497-2143 for more information or to schedule a tour.

Selected Databases

Below is a list of online databases that will be helpful to you and your students in the classroom and with homework help.
Click on the tabs to learn more.

A comprehensive, multidisciplinary reference resource, ABC-CLIO contains over 140,000 primary and secondary source materials covering a variety of subject areas, including ancient to modern world history and geography, current events, pop culture and much more.  Users can easily search across any one or all of these areas, uncovering a variety of sources as they do so, from brief “overview articles,” to in-depth essays, multimedia materials, and timelines.

With Brainfuse Homework HelpNow you can:

Receive expert, personalized help from HelpNow tutors in

  • Live Help – Live online help
  • Skills Building – Brush up or catch up on specific skills with a live tutor
  • Writing Lab – Submit written assignments to receive feedback from tutors
  • Question Point – A 24/7 service; submit a question and receive a response from a tutor within 24 hours
  • Language Lab – Live help for with your Spanish class! (See Mango Languages for more comprehensive language learning)

Study

  • Test Center – Prepare for state and national exams using official practice tests
  • FlashBulb – Create and share study games, from traditional flash cards to more unique study games, like Hangman, Bug Match, Crossword, and more!

Collaborate

  • Meet classmates in Brainfuse chatrooms to study or work on group projects remotely
  • Brainwave – Create and share movie-like notes and ideas

A powerful, all-in-one reference resource (atlas, news, biographies, homework help, etc.), Britannica Online offers all of its traditional coverage and a great deal more, including videos and multimedia collections and links to recommended websites, and even audience-specific portals with the “Britannica for Kids” pages, highlighting special resources for students.

Mango is an online language-learning system that can help English speakers learn languages like Spanish, French, Japanese, Brazilian Portuguese, German, Mandarin Chinese, Greek, Italian, and Russian to name a few with more than 36 different languages in all!

There are also English courses for speakers of Arabic (Egyptian), Cantonese, Mandarin, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Turkish, and Vietnamese.

You can use this resource with your Peoria Public Library card and access the entire database, but if you create a login profile the database can help you keep track of your progress.

Start by logging in here.

NoveList Plus and NoveList Plus K-8 are unique tools designed to help you choose the best titles for your reading list!  Search for “read-alikes” based on the authors and titles you like now, or browse the diverse recommended reading lists covering all genres, tastes, and reading levels.

NoveList also offers a variety of professional resources for educators, like Common Core Connections guides and curriculum-based or award-winning boo

Peterson’s Test Prep is a multi-purpose educational resource, helping students and professionals with:

Test Preparation – Peterson’s Test Prep offers study guides and practice tests covering a wide variety of standardized student and professional certification tests, like: Advanced Placement (AP) tests, GED, ACT, SAT, GRE, LSAT, MCAT, ASVAB, NCLEX-RN, Clerical, Postal worker, and TOEFL, U.S. Citizenship, and many others.

Career Guidance and Preparation – Peterson’s Test Prep also offers several professional tools, like the Virtual Career Library and Resume Builder.  These resources can help you find the right career path, prepare for interviews, and succeed in your chosen position.

Need help with a research project or homework assignment? The library has magazine articles, books, primary source documents, images, videos and more! Use Explora to find reliable information on thousands of topics covering a wide range of subjects, including: • Arts and Literature • Biography • Business and Government • Current Issues • Geography • Health • History • Science and Math

Click here to login at the library or remotely. Please use your Peoria Public Library Card

Need help using this resource? Ask a librarian!

SIRS Issues Researcher is a general reference database containing thousands of full-text articles exploring both sides of controversial social, scientific, health, historic, business, economic, political and global issues.

This resource also includes unique tools designed for students and teachers, like the MyAnalysis and iThink Interactive Research Guide or Common Core Writing Guide.

If you would like to see a listing of all our Databases, please click here.

Links and Articles

How to Smile
Excellent website with over 3,000 math and science activities for you to share with your students.  Each activity includes information not only on how to do it but also age range, cost, prep time and how long the activity will last so you can plan accordingly.  Topics are as diverse as chemistry to climate to astronomy with many others besides.

Library of Congress Teacher Resources
This site has some really amazing resources but this particular portion of it is especially for teachers with primary sources, lesson plans and other such wonderful stuff.  Take a look but give yourself plenty of time to browse through this treasure trove.

National Archives
This website is a great source for primary source documents, lesson plans and links to other exciting sites where you can find more resources to help your students.

Smithsonian Education
This website has lesson plans, an extensive resource library with a good search feature, a webinar archive, workshop opportunities, links to other helpful sites and so much more.  Go, browse and find some amazing tools.

Best Apps for Teaching and Learning

Short article on apps divided into categories such as books, STEM, and social studies.  The articles gives grade level, platform, a brief description of the app, helpful tips and a link to the website.

Illinois State Board of Education – Lots of information and plenty of links.

About PPL

Would you like to schedule a tour of a Peoria Public Library location? Invite a librarian to your class? Request materials to supplement a class assignment? Fill out and submit this form to let us know what you need!