shhh... Don't tell my administrator, I don't always plan my lessons two weeks in advance. Sometimes I look for a book and that is what I read for the next week. So..... I was looking at the Sunshine State Young Readers Award Jr . book display to determine what books I haven't read yet.  Inky the Octopus  by  Erin Guendelsberger  caught my eye. I have shown my students videos of an octopus escaping a tank; this book is the perfect addition to that lesson. Inky escaped from the National Aquarium in New Zealand. This book is a fictional account of what might have happened on his journey to the ocean. I started with a third grade class. They were full of skepticism, commenting that the story cannot be real. Cue the YouTube videos. Fact: if you start watching animal videos with 8/9 year olds, they don't want to stop.  Later that day, I needed to pull books for Kindergarten to choose from for check out. I let them choose from a book cart with about 50 bo......

I live in South Florida where the winter temperatures can range from a low around 60° to a high of 80° plus. We will get the occasional cold front and might see lows in the 40s. Rarely does it freeze in the area. How do you teach about snow to children who rarely experience winter temperatures, let alone see snow? Of course the first step is to read books, fiction and nonfiction books about Snow. Some of my favorites include: Snowballs by Lois Ehlert,   The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats, and  The Biggest, Best Snowman  by Margery Cuyler. I use YouTube videos as well. My favorite are time lapse videos that show accumulation.      Four Feet of Snow Time Lapse (43 seconds)      Snowfall time lapse and clean up (3:42)   This one give them a good visuals of shoveling, cars making tracks and snow covering the tracks. We can't see snow videos without seeing some snowplows.       Kids Truck Video- Snow Pl......

Answer these questions to see if you need to be using Epic! Books in your classroom. Are you a teacher? Do you have students who need books to read? Do you have a limited classroom library? Do you have students who need to listen to books to hear fluent reading? Do you have students interested in Dinosaurs but you only have fiction books? Do you have students who are reading above the level you have in your classroom? Do you have students who are learning English and need to listen to books in the French, Spanish or Chinese? If you answered YES to any of these questions, then Epic! Books is for you. And the best part, Epic! is FREE for educators. Simply go to ge tepic.com , click EDUCATORS and sign up. Now that you have an account, it is time to create some collections. Collections are groups of books that you have put together. Collections can be assigned to one, two, or all of your students.  Simply find a book you like, click on the heart, Add to, click C......

The first week of school is exciting, nerve wracking, terrifying, overwhelming, thrilling, and more. And that is just for the teacher! Between learning names, teaching procedures, drying eyes, and assuring the students they will be alright; teacher need to start teaching. There are so many wonderful books for the first week of school, but these are two of my favorite:             Miss Bindergarten Gets Ready for Kindergarten             Oliver and His Alligator Let's start with Miss Bindergarten. I love all the activity in this book. It is a great way to start teaching how to use the illustrations to tell the story. This books features rhyming words while teaching the alphabet. Each student in the class has a name that starts with a different letter of the alphabet. The students are named using a rhyming couplet. It is on the next two pages that the illustrations take over. Each two page spread features Miss Bindergarten......