As we kick off a new school year at Van Meter Community School, our students and teachers couldn't be more excited about getting connected to one of our favorite places to read and learn online!
It's the award-winning digital library,
Epic!
With unlimited access to over 35,000 of the best books, learning videos, quizzes and more, Epic! brings engaging and exciting reading experiences to all of our elementary and middle school students in a safe, fun, kid-friendly environment.
From the moment they login,
I love how all students can find books and resources that will let them...
...explore, discover and connect to their interests from...
Top Picks,
Top Picks Nonfiction,
Comics,
Makerspace,
Top Picks Video and so much more.
Our students really enjoy being able to search and read from
Popular Titles,
which includes lots of
Popular Series. This will keep them reading more of what they love even more.
Teachers can also set topics of interest for their students to search.
For example, in my class I set
Healthy Habits as a topic I wanted them to find new books, videos and other resources to learn more about health.
I even have the option to add these to
Collections, Favorite the resources in this topic and...
...Assign to Students or a Class.
Another one of my favorite things that Epic! does for us is put together
Collections to go along with special events throughout the year.
The one highlighted this month is
Hispanic Heritage Month,
which features books and videos from
folk tales and luchdoras to men and women who made their mark on history and exploring hispanic culture.
You will
find that Collection here.
And look at this one for
Talk Like A Pirate Day coming up this week on September 19.
As a teacher librarian, these Collections give me a terrific resource and tool for collaboration through special events and even putting them together for our teachers and students as they focus on curricular needs throughout the year.
Since each Collection can be easily shared in a variety of ways,
I can add them to
Collections by Destiny and
Symbaloo so our school community can get to them easily. These are the two main curation tools that we use.
Oh, and I can't forget the
Epic! Monthly Activity Calendars, which I find
to be another fun way to tie in special events and activities around the free resources they have in Epic!
You will find the
Epic! Monthly Activity Calendars page
here.
Look how cute the one for October is!
I will be putting this into my teachers mailboxes and up in the library this week. They will love it!
Now, let me tell you how we kicked off Epic! at Van Meter and a little about the resources and tools for teachers.
This year, we put together little bags with Epic! pencils and bookmarks for...
...each teacher to hand out to their students as they were....
...getting logged into their accounts. This was fun for everyone and a way to go over some of the important features of Epic! with everyone again.
There are lots of
Educator Resources including
Classroom Decorations, Back to School Night Presentation, Colleague Presentation and
Shared Devices: How To Use Epic! that make it easy for anyone to make bringing Epic! to your classrooms and school fun.
Like this little poster!
Our students all have their own Google account and a lot of the teachers use Google Classroom,
which is how they got logged in but there are other ways to set up your class in Epic! including Adding a Student or a Class Roster.
As they got logged in,
they were excited to search for books they wanted to read and explore, while they shared suggestions with friends.
By giving them access to such a wide variety of amazing resources,
Epic! definitely nurtures a love of reading and learning in kids It is the perfect cross-section between education and fun!
If you haven't signed up for Epic!, you will find this FREE site for teachers and librarians here.
It is also offered at a discounted price to families who sign up through their child's teacher.
As we start more projects at Van Meter this year, we will be using Epic! in more and more ways. I will share these ideas in another blog post soon!
This year help your students be Epic! readers too!
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