Mission made possible

With school winter recess over, it’s time for children to go back to

work on their school assignments.

Your children may be working on a California mission, American

Indian, state, country or president report this year. Be sure to

remember that children can use the Newport Beach Public Library as a

valuable resource to facilitate the gathering of information for such

projects. Students are already starting their California mission

reports. For California mission reports, the library has three

series’ to help children with their projects: “Missions: California’s

Heritage,” “The Missions of California” and “California Missions.”

“Missions: California’s Heritage” series is a pamphlet on each

mission written by Mary Null Boule. “The Missions of California”

series is written by various authors and contains more than 60 pages

of information on each mission. In addition, the “California

Missions” series contains seven books, six of which discuss missions

grouped by geographic area. The seventh book in the series is

“Projects and Layouts” by Libby Nelson with Kari A. Cornell. This

book shares how to create a replica of a mission using cardboard,

modeling dough, or sugar cubes, and it includes the layouts of the

various missions.

Additionally, there are several general titles that will provide

an overview of the missions, such as “The California Missions” by Ann

Heinrichs and “The California Missions” by Valerie J. Weber and Dale

Anderson. If titles on an assigned mission are checked out, the

California Missions Fact Cards in the Children’s Reference collection

provide the basics facts on each mission and can be copied at the

library. See our Homework Help section on the KidsPage link on the

library website for links to information on the California missions.

Click on the tab labeled Events and Services; then select KidsPage.

For state reports, there are also three main series’: “From Sea to

Shining Sea,” “Hello U.S.A.,” and “America the Beautiful.” Each

series has a book for each state, which includes information on the

history and people of the state and color photos, state symbols,

recipes, timeline and basic facts. The “America the Beautiful” series

is the most in-depth at about 140 pages.

For great maps and pictures of flags and other state symbols,

visit our database Curriculum Resource Center grades kindergarten

through five on the library home page under Find Information and the

subheading Databases. Under Maps and Flags, the state maps include

basic, elevation, agriculture, and industry maps. The state flag

comes in a color or outline version. Finally, the Facts tab provides

a color picture of the state flower, tree, and bird and lists state

facts. Remember the library catalog, databases, and KidsPage are

available to access at home, even when the library is closed.

* CHECK IT OUT is written by the staff of the Newport Beach Public

Library. This week’s column is by Victoria Campbell. All titles may

be reserved from home or office computers by accessing the catalog at

https://www.newportbeach library.org. For more information on the

Central Library or any of the branch locations, please contact the

Newport Beach Public Library at (949) 717-3800, option 2.