Books, books, books!

I have been on a reading binge lately. My television has been rather lonely because I've been buried in books! My favorite thing to do on a Saturday is snuggle up with my pup and a good book!

For me, the love of reading started young. I have fond memories of walking to the library with my mom as a child, checking out loads of books, and reading them all week. When I got to grade school, library check-out was one of the highlights of the week, where I met friends like Ramona (Quimby), Herbie (Jones), Sarah (Crewe), and so many others. Now, I love reading to my nieces who are four and seven, and even more, watching my seven-year-old niece fall in love with books like I did.

Unfortunately, (or fortunately, depending on who you are), brick-and-mortar book stores have been vanishing, and COVID has made libraries harder to get to as often as one might like.

But.

Libraries are full of audio books, ebooks, and other electronic reading sources that we can access from the comfort of our couches! My library provides access through Hoopla, Libby, and OverDrive, and that's where I get most, if not all, of my books, and what makes it easy to always have my "on deck book" at the ready.

For kids, one of my favorite resources is Epic. It has thousands of books for all ages, from audio books, to read-to-me, to just plain ebooks (though there is nothing plain about an ebook!) Access is simple, especially when teachers are already using Epic in the classroom, which is exactly what we did in first grade right before break.

All the kids got to access their own Epic account and spend time finding books to read over break.  Epic is always free to teachers during the school day, and parents who connect to their child's classroom account can get one free book per day outside of school hours.  Additionally, Epic offers a subscription that families can purchase for unlimited reading outside of school hours.

The bottom line is that no matter how you access your books, there is nothing better than a good story, no matter how young or old you are!

P.S. I was yesterday years old when I realized that GoodReads is the perfect place to keep my book list, much better than the notes file on my phone!

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Among the Chaos....

So the past two weeks have been massively chaotic - between the Ah-May-Zing Macul Conference (more later!) and then parent-teacher conferences... yeah.  Busy busy busy!

What is one to do when there is so much happening?  A scavenger hunt, of course!  Or at least that's what the second graders did the past two weeks during tech time.  And since it was March... and March is Reading Month.... why not make it a reading scavenger hunt?  And since it happens to be during tech time.... why not make it an EPIC scavenger hunt?

Which is exactly what we did.

Since we kicked off tech time in March is Reading Month by introducing Epic, what better way to wrap the month than with a full on exploration of all that Epic has to offer.

It was a fun way for the second graders to explore the different offerings in Epic - read-to-me books, building a library of favorites, finding a series to dive into - it was, well, Epic!

GetEpic!

WHAT?!  You're NOT familiar with Epic?!  If you are a teacher, and you have access to one or more internet ready devices, then there is NO time to waste!

Epic is an incredible online bookstore for teachers (and home use!)

Unlike other bookstores, though... it's all FREE.  That's right, 100% FREE for teachers to use with their students during the school day.

As of this post, there are 35,000 books available.  Unlike ReadingA-Z (another great resource, but that's another post!) they are actual books that you would see in the library, on Amazon.... 

For the younger kids, they have read-to-me books where the book is read to the kids, pages turn, words highlighted.... it's pretty spectacular as a listening center!  For the older kids, they have audio books of novels - great for those that need the audio version of books.  

For everyone in between?  There are e-books!  Lots and lots and LOTS of ebooks!  From National Geographic to Eric Carle books, from Judy Moody to Big Nate.  The fact that this FREE resource is at your fingertips is pretty darn spectacular.

Now, you're probably wondering, what's so special about an ebook library?  With Epic, you can assign books to kids, you can create collections of books to support different topics.  You can create your own comprehension checks, or use ones already made.  You can see how long a student actually took to finish a book (30 page picture book in 6 minutes, anyone?)  

Set-up is fairly simple, too.  You create a FREE account.  You get a class code.  You add your students.  The first time they log-in on any device, you give them the class code.  From there, they can access their account at any time during the school day on any device that has the class code! Oh, and it works on iPads, Android tablets, and any web browser, so no excuses!

What?  What's that?  Home use?  I'm glad you asked!  Home use is available for parents for $8/month.  They often run a summer special, where the whole summer is like $10!

Now, the research is still coming in regarding kids and ebooks, so I wouldn't necessarily use this a lot with the younger grades.  In fact, I like to think of Epic as an incredible resource at my fingertips - researching famous people?  Check out the biographies.  Analyzing non-fiction text?  Check out National Geographic.  

At any rate, delay no longer - go sign up for your free Epic account!