The Healthy Tip Corner

Wednesday, October 2, 2013

The New AV2 eBooks Have Our Students Excited About Reading & Learning More!

As the little ones are learning how to use the library and technology at the beginning of the year, they are jumping into all of the resources that we have available.  We give them lots of time to explore the topics they are curious and excited about.  

They just love finding books in the nonfiction to investigate and bring home.....sometimes several books at one time.  And they are super excited to be see all of the new magazines they can read and check out this year.  
The excitement also comes when we get into MackinVIA to find all of the amazing eBooks and eResources.  Every single one of our students love being able to log into their MackinVIA account to search for things they want to read, share, and virtually bring home in their "Backpack."

You can read more about the "Backpacks" within MackinVIA here.
This fall they have been really excited about several new eBooks that we have added to our MackinVIA.  They are media enhanced eBooks from Weigl Publishing.     
                           
Weigl has created dozens of media enhanced eBooks within the AV2 by Weigl series that are available through Mackin Educational Resources

The Mackin website states within an FAQs page about AV2, 

www.av2books.com has been developed to accompany Weigl books. 

The site includes audio, videos, web links, quizzes, key words, slide shows, interactive activities, core activities, plus activities for differentiated learning, through which students explore the covered subject. 

These features can be used for group work, research, and interdisciplinary projects that will help students meet important knowledge and skill outcomes in U.S. curricula from grades K to 12.  
 There are different collections of the AV2 eBooks.....so many that our students would love!
As you can see, these books are a wonderful addition to any library and school.  
I have added several of the AV2 titles to our MackinVIA.
One of my favorite collections is AV2 Storytime.  As the website states,

AV2 Storytime brings beginning readers classic stories of lessons and values. The timeless tales of Aesop are retold with engaging text and vibrant visuals. These books are sure to engage beginning readers and help them become independent readers. Through the online content for each book, readers can access an exclusive AV2 animated video of the story. Children can read along in their book or watch the story come to life on their computer screen.
One of my favorites from this collection is Two Travelers and a Beat: What Is A True Friend? I added this one to our MackinVIA.
The illustrations and story are so sweet.....I love how students can read it independently or with their class.
The little video that goes with the story will be a HUGE hit too.
As they are watching the video, students can click in the corner to take a quiz and view vocabulary.
I also chose eBooks about animals that would be found in Iowa since we are getting ready to research Iowa animals with the kindergarteners.

The students have loved investigating these new animal eBooks.  I looked at the eBook about Butterflies within the Backyard Animals series yesterday with a small group of girls.  
 Not only did we love reading the eBook, but we also loved finding such a great glossary, index, and "Frequently Asked Questions" section in the back of the book.
The thing that really makes these eBooks come alive is the online component that accompanies each title.
In the front and back of the book, readers will find this page above which includes a website and special code.
The girls and I went to the website www.av2books.com/ and put the code that we found in the back of the eBook.
It took us into a beautiful website just for the eBooks that we were reading about Butterflies.  

On the side of the screen, the students clicked on the different pages of the eBook that corresponds to the pages of the eBook or print book from Weigl.  
They were so excited to find a video about butterflies on the first pages they clicked on.  It was easy for them to play the video and learn even more. 
They also clicked on the little red headphones and a recording played to teach them more too.  
Throughout the eBook, there were interesting quizzes to engage the students and enhance their learning.  They really enjoyed doing these to show what they had learned.
I especially love the writing activity that we found in the eBook.  This activity could be turned into an entire writing assignment.
There are also links that take readers to other websites.  This is a wiki about butterflies.  I really like how they take my students to these resources as well.
I think the AV2 eBooks would be really awesome using with a group of students within the library or classroom.  The videos, vocabulary, and quizzes could be really beneficial to a classroom setting and enhance the curriculum in a variety of ways.  

The information and other resources within these media enhanced eBooks are a hit with our students.  I can't wait to continue to use them as we get into our school year.
You can find almost 450 AV2 titles by Weigl Publishing at Mackin Educational Resources.

1 comment:

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