Reference Information for Elementary School Students

Encyclopedias and Almanacs for General Information on Any Topic

Encyclopedia.com from the Electronic Library

This is a commercial site that offers brief encyclopedia articles for free. Type in a keyword to find short articles that contain that word.  There are no pictures. Ignore advertisement banners and information that is offered for a fee.

http://www.encyclopedia.com/home.html

Knowledge Adventure Encyclopedia

This is an online encyclopedia covering a wide range of topics. There is a good search feature for locating information. Articles are fairly short. There are no pictures. http://207.2.56.10/encyclopedia/

Encarta Online Advanced Find Page

This is a commercial site that allows you to type in a keyword to find an article from the Encarta Concise Encyclopedia. Some pictures and maps are included. Ignore advertisement banners.

http://encarta.msn.com/find/find.asp

Almanac - Information Please

This is a commercial site that allows you to search any topic in a number of good sources, however, it does take a long time to load. Ignore advertisement banners.

http://www.infoplease.com:80/index.html

Maps and Information About Countries Around the World

The World Factbook -- 1997

This is the CIA World Factbook with maps and information about every country in the world.

http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/country.html

Atlapedia Online

Information about countries and world maps.

http://www.atlapedia.com/index.html

Map Machine Atlas: Map @ nationalgeographic.com

The Map Machine Atlas offers maps, flags, facts and profiles for countries of the world and each state of the United States. http://www.nationalgeographic.com/resources/ngo/maps/atlas/index.html

National Geographic Atlas

This page has almost 600 maps from around the world. Click on a continent, country, province or state, choose a format and print the map.

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/resources/ngo/education/xpeditions/atlas/atlas.html

Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection

Extensive collections of current and historical maps of the world.

http://www.lib.utexas.edu/Libs/PCL/Map_collection/Map_collection.html

State Maps Page of the Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection

Outline maps that show counties in the state, some city maps and maps of National Parks, Monuments, and Historic Sites within each state. http://www.lib.utexas.edu/Libs/PCL/Map_collection/united_states.html

Color Landform Atlas of the United States

This site shows shaded relief maps and satellite images of each state in the U.S.

http://fermi.jhuapl.edu/states/states.html

MapQuest

Type in any US address to view a map of that address.  Note: Some addresses are not correctly located on maps.  Click on Browse All Map to find a regional map of a city, state, province, or country. There are advertisements on this page.

http://city.net/maps/address/

Mapblast!

Type in Any US address to view a map of that address.  Click above or below the hot air balloon to zoom in closer or view map from farther away.  There are advertisements on this page.

http://www.mapblast.com/yt.hm?FAM=mapblast&SEC=start

Earth and Moon Viewer

This page allows you to view the earth from satellites at specific times and locations that you select.  These views give a good visual image of day and night around the world.

http://www.fourmilab.ch/earthview/vplanet.html

Dictionaries

WWWebster Dictionary - Search screen

Type in a word to find the definition in this dictionary.

http://www.m-w.com/netdict.htm

WWWebster Thesaurus - Search screen

Type in a word to find other words with similar meanings.

http://www.m-w.com/mw/thesaurus.htm

Rhyming Dictionary

Type in a word to find word that rhyme with that word.

http://www.link.cs.cmu.edu/dougb/rhyme-doc.html

The Wordsmyth English Dictionary - Thesaurus

Type in a word to find a definition, synonyms and similar words.

http://www.lightlink.com/bobp/wedt/

Biographies of Famous People

Biography.com

Type in the name of a famous person or other key words to find biographical information.

http://www.biography.com/find/find.html

Biographical Dictionary Search Page

This dictionary has very brief information about famous people.

http://www.s9.com/biography/search.html

Weather

Baltimore Weather

This is the current weather and forcast for Baltimore from Intellicast.

http://www.intellicast.com/weather/bwi/content.shtml

Weather Underground

Type in a city, state, zip code or country for the local weather forcast and links to weather maps.

http://www.wunderground.com/

USA Today Weather

This site gives the weather forcast for Baltimore with links to weather in cities and countries around the world.

http://www.usatoday.com/weather/basemaps/nw724060.htm

Weather Maps - Yahoo

This site has links to weather maps from around the world. Choose satelite images, animated satelite images, radar maps, maps showing percipitation and maps of high and low temperatures.

http://weather.yahoo.com/images.html

Current Events

Weekly Reader

Weekly Reader provides many articles sorted by grade level intended as follow ups to articles in their printed newspaper.  They review the news of the week and present  challenges and writing prompts related to the periodical.  Check out "This Week" and  "News Cruise."

http://www.weeklyreader.com/

Scholastic News Online

Scholastic News archives past issues and also provides update articles for the current issue.  There are also online activities to go along with the most current issue.

http://www.scholastic.com/scholasticnews/

 
Time For Kids

This site posts current news as well as archives of past issues.  They also have an interactive feature where kids can give their opinions.

http://www.pathfinder.com/@@fXfabAUAvhoIRYeE/TFK/

 
Sports Illustrated For Kids

Online articles on current sports topics - games, fantasy leagues, sports news and more.

http://www.sikids.com/index.html

Kid News

Online kid's newspaper with articles written by kids.

http://www.kidnews.com/

Children's Express

News stories written by and for kids.

http://www.ce.org/

Other Sources of Information

First Nations Histories - North America

Information about Native North Americans. This site is under construction and is only complete for the northeast region. http://dickshovel.netgate.net/Compacts.html

Unit Conversion Table

This is an online form that will allow you to convert measurements from one type to another. Type in the amount and select how you want it converted. http://eardc.swt.edu/cgi-bin/ucon/ucon.pl

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