Epic!

My students LOVE using Epic! It has motivated many of my students to love reading for fun. My students love the program so much that they ask to go on Epic! when they finish their work. Sometimes I even have to tell them, "Right now is not the appropriate time to be on Epic! you should be doing your math work, reading activity, etc." I have even caught students listening to their newly discovered Goosebumps audiobooks while working on their math work, snack time, or during morning work.

But what makes Epic! so great for teachers? That is simple. I don't like Epic! simply because my students like it, I love the program too. IT IS FREE for teachers, there are many resources, a variety of books, and its fun to see my students excited about reading.

Epic! has a large number of books available for students and teachers. The best part is that the books that are available are an electronic version of actual books that students are familiar with, meaning they are published books.

Within a large number of books, there are many fiction and nonfiction books. The books are from a large variety of categories that are categorized for students and teachers to search through, especially for the times that you want to read a new book to the class or to use a new book for a lesson.

When searching for a specific book or a subject, there are many different forms of books to go through. This makes it easy to search for the perfect book to go with any unit or concept.

Once you find the perfect pre-made collection of books or a series of books, you can add them to your own personal library for future use or easy access. When starting a new unit I love creating collections or using one that was already created by another teacher. This way once I give my students access they are able to read pre-determined books about a specific concept. Your collection can be shared with students or even other teachers. You also have an option to make your collection public so that other teachers can use your collection and save time for others or you can save time by using the collection made by another teacher.

Once students take off with their reading there are different data that the teachers can use. There is an activity feed where the teacher can view what students are currently reading, their reading progress for the book, and any achievements that students receive.

As the teacher, you also have access to your class list with the students reading stats (books finished, hours read, and last time they were active in their account). Not only do you get that information for each student you get to see the progress made as a classroom and set goals for the class.

But the best part of Epic! is that students love the program! As a teacher, you can find programs that you believe are great, but if students do not buy into the program then it won't be successful. Students love logging into Epic! since they get a chance to choose their own avatar and collect badges (achievement rewards).  There is a long list of badges that they can earn, from reading at night, zooming into a book, to holiday badges. Students love these. Especially when they can see and compare each other's amount of badges, just like they can when they go to log into the Epic! There is a class list with their names and their avatar. Under their avatar, there is a number indicating the number of badges earned. I always hear my students saying "Oh I have 20 badges and so and so has 19."

With all the student motivators, a vast amount of books, and ability to search for specific books, this makes for a great resource. My students love using Epic!

PLEASE VOTE!!

Calling Everyone Who Reads my Blog:

Please vote for me to win some money and document camera. : ) You do not need to become a member to vote, only if you wish to, and the only email you will receive is a confirmation email about your vote.

Vote 1:

Dictionary Expert

 http://www.weareteachers.com/teaching-ideas/grant/teaching-idea?app=25234&grantId=98







Vote 2:

3 R's

 http://www.weareteachers.com/teaching-ideas/grant/teaching-idea?app=25232&grantId=99

Projects, Projects, Projects 2

Project 2:

I have completed all the worksheets, posters, and flash cards to go with my character study for Olivia and Lily. My students have also completed the entire unit. They just loved the unit and really got to know the characters, and loved the books. This unit's main focus is understanding the who, what, where, when, and how. This does not mean the simple components, but it takes it more indept like point of view, details, main/minor characters, and many more concepts.

I would love to place it on my teaching store for others to be able to use, but I do not know how to put it together. That is where I need your help? What is the best way to organize all the different components of this unit? What will work best for you? For those who take a couple minutes from their time to share their opinion's and thoughts will  be entered in a drawing to win this unit. I will be conducting the drawing next Friday, April 13th.

My thinking:

1: Each worksheet, poster, and flash card will be individual files and zipped together.

2. Creat 6 documents (one for each W and H and in each file everythign that goes with it) and zip the file together.

3. Put it all in one big document

4. Put the poster's together, flash cards together, and worksheet's together.

5. Create 2 documents. One for Olivia and one for Lilly.

How would you like to get the document to use?
Example Pages:

Capirotada (mixture of ideas) bulletin board

I could not decide what idea to go with for my bulletin board so I put a bit of every idea I had.











Parts of a dictionary:

Dictionary Parts

This was a fun activity to do with my class. After teaching the different parts, many different ways and still not getting the results I wanted, I came up with this idea. Thank God that this did the trick and the light bulb went on, and we were able to move on.

Telling Time in a different way: 

Telling Time in a different way Model

I had a difficult time teaching how to tell time in a different way, since my students were not understanding the concept nor memorizing how to figure out the time. I tried songs, formulas, practice, and nothing seemed to work. I tried different models and it was all work in vain. 

Then I got this idea. I did this project with my students as I was thinking about it. And it was a great hit with my students. They had fun creating it, and understood the concept and reasoning behind why things are done a certain way. 

After this activity students were better at telling time and saying it in another way. Suggestion: Gluing yard is a difficult task, I recommend leaving a small pace between the Popsicle sticks to stick one end there and tape it, it is less messy. 

When I did this project I did not have the template as I was creating as we went through it. But to save time, and for your understanding I created a template with explanations for Free.Click on the picture caption or here for your exclusive copy. This is not located in my teacher store only in this blog. EXCLUSIVE FREEBIE. YAY!  

Taco Paragraph:

I am extremely proud of this idea. My students seem to grasp this idea as it is connected to them and is able to add more details to it rather than the hamburger explanation. This is an extensive lesson and will take at least 5 weeks or even more. It all depends on how long of a writing period you have and the students pace. I am done with this unit which includes: lesson plans, worksheets, posters, and template for the taco paragraph. I just need to spell check and make sure my lessons make sense and are understandable. Look for it soon. : )