Caledon Public Library have two resources for kids that you may not know about that are interactive and support all kinds of learning styles. The first is Tumblebooks, and the second is called LOTE online. Tumblebooks is a site full of videos, graphic novels, readalong picture books, language learning, puzzles and games. LOTE4Kids is more focussed on language learning by providing readalongs offered in English and at least one other language. Unlike the digital library for the adult collection, you don’t have to wait for books on hold, you or your child can just click and read or listen without limit.
LOTE4Kids stands for “Languages other than English” which means each book is offered in English and another language. There are 1300 books with 45 languages to choose from. The resource is very easy to use, when you log in, you are presented with a display of many different flags. You then select whatever language you want to listen to and you can select books from a library in that language.
There is a variety of sign languages including American, British, Australian, and Irish (soon to be added). These read-alongs work the same way but have someone signing onscreen.
Alternatively, LOTE4Kids has games including colouring pages, spot the difference, word search, memory games, pattern recognition, and even a typing game. The typing game is like a Mavis Beacon style typing game where you play a fisherman in a boat who has to catch word fish by typing in the corresponding words. The colouring book game is all online so kids can become familiar with digital art creation similar to Adobe products (Illustrator, Photoshop). Keep in mind that there is an app for LOTE4Kids which you can download on a tablet or phone.
There are lots of graphic novels on Tumble books including popular series like Geronimo Stilton. There are also documentary style natured-themed videos like how the moose grows its horns, why dogs are cute, tumbleweeds, and what the biggest living thing to ever live is (it’s a fungus). There is tab for playlists which you can select by the amount of time you have. If you want to see the Paper Bag Princess and other stories in 20 minutes, you can go to the “10-20 minutes section”. But if you have more time, you can select from the “40+ minutes” section. This is a feature I would love to see on every streaming service!
If you are interested in the language learning aspects of these resources, I would recommend LOTE4Kids over Tumblebooks because there are more languages. The quality of the video read-alongs are better on LOTE than Tumblebooks, but Tumblebooks have more variety of material beyond just picture books including videos. LOTE4Kids is searchable in our catalogue whereas Tumblebooks is not, but I would recommend accessing both resources through the Digital Library page on the CPL website.