While many will be embracing their Netflix accounts for the foreseeable future, this is a great time to check out its intellectual counterpart for kids from Scholastic called BookFlix!
Bookflix is a digital resource available through the Free Library that pairs classic video storybooks with related nonfiction ebooks. It also has an extremely user-friendly format just like Netflix! This tremendous and unique site encourages kids to embrace fictional stories and further their knowledge of related, non-fictional aspects of those stories. This engaging way of linking fact and fiction encourages sustained attention span, inspires curiosity, reinforces early learning skills and improves traditional as well as digital literacy.
There are many categories to choose from such as Imagination, Music and Rhythm, Animals and Nature, Earth and Sky, People and Places, Celebrations, Family and Community, and Adventure.
This model helps kids engage with subjects they might not seek out on their own that are related to something that they would. This also leads to an expansion of their associative reasoning and helps them to become more complex thinkers!
Here is an example of an innovative, thought-provoking pairing that Bookflix provides to its users.
The Dot by Peter and Paul Reynolds paired with All The Colors of the Rainbow by Allan Fowler under the Family and Community section.
The Dot tells the story of little Vashti, who is experiencing serious creative frustrations. She simply doesn’t believe she can draw and is beside herself! That is until her clever teacher encourages her to draw a single dot, asks Vashti to sign it, and hangs the drawing proudly in her classroom. Her teacher’s encouragement inspires Vashti to draw an even better dot and then a series of dots in different sizes, colors, and combinations until she has an entire art show of dots! The story ends with a young boy wandering through her art show dazzled by her beautiful artwork. He admits to her that he wishes he could draw and Vashti betrays a small smile and a little trick she learned from her teacher... she asks the little boy to draw a single line and then sign his name on the piece.
The Colors of the Rainbow is a delightful, scientific counterpart to The Dot. This book teaches young readers about where the colors of the rainbow come from and why light has different appearances in nature. It also provides some historical context about the master of the prism, Isaac Newton! This book asks thought-provoking questions about shape, light, and color that harken back to The Dot’s interest in seemingly simple shapes like dots and lines. The Colors of the Rainbow reinforces the importance and beauty of asking questions about things in nature that we often take for granted.
Both of these books are deeply interested in how far curiosity and imagination can take you and how necessary they are in order to cultivate a rich inner life and thinking creatively. After engaging with these books, readers have the opportunity to play games and do puzzles associated with them. These are terrific exercises for reinforcing new information, establishing complex connections, and deepening a learning experience. For these books in particular, readers have the opportunity to play word matching games with some of the terms and ideas brought up in The Colors of the Rainbow, as well as sequencing games related to the plot of The Dot. These kinds of exercises are not punitive and only celebrate the greatness of curiosity.
The Dot as a story demonstrates the importance and significance of taking that first step as a creator. It is so hard to begin a creative project and a blank piece of paper can be very intimidating! However, The Dot demonstrates that a single, seemingly small action can have enormously rewarding results. The Colors of the Rainbow demonstrates that questioning one aspect of nature can lead you down a path of fascinating discoveries that have connections to art, history, and of course, science!
Bookflix is just one of our excellent digital resources for kids. Whether you’re home more than usual right now and looking for ways to keep your child learning, or you’re looking for consistently reliable digital learning tools, we’ve got you covered! Below are a couple of our other mind-expanding databases!
Overdrive is the place for you to peruse audiobooks, kindle books, and other ebooks. We are adding new titles all the time and it is a terrific resource for kids, teens, and adults. All you need is your library card number! Check out the special ebook reading room just for kids!
Up late with homework questions? We are able to help! Tutors are available online Monday-Friday to answer homework questions. Students simply need to specify their subject and then write their questions in a text box. We are prepared to answer questions from 6th-grade curriculum through college! You’ll also find study resources on this site such as worksheets and video tutorials.
Tumble Books is an awesome database of ebooks just for kids! This site is chock-full of different ways to bring ebooks to life with sing-alongs, read-alongs, and even graphic novels. There is also a plethora of early development games and puzzles such as matching sentences to images and a variety of memory games.
Have a question for Free Library staff? Please submit it to our Ask a Librarian page and receive a response within two business days.