Monday, February 26, 2018

EPIC!

Do you want to get your kids hooked on reading?  Of course, you do!  Epic! is the answer for you.



1.  Epic! is FREE for teachers!

2.  Epic offers REAL books.  Does your school participate in AR or another reading incentive program, but you have kids who have read every book on your bookshelf?  Epic! has thousands of books.  Kids can read the books on Epic! and then login to AR to test.

3.  Do you have kids who struggle to read on grade level or are nonreaders?  Epic! has thousands of audio and read aloud books so all students can access both fiction and nonfiction books.

4.  Nonfiction books?  Epic! has thousands to choose from.

Epic! has everything you could possibly want for a classroom library.  You can find more information here.


Here are a few screenshots of what Epic! looks like.





Do you want an additional incentive for your kids?  Epic! has the Readerpillar.  As your class reads books, they earn badges to fill in on the classroom chart.  Epic! even offers some rewards for your students such as printable crafts.


I hope you check out Epic! My students love it!!



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Sunday, February 4, 2018

Accepting Feedback: Social Skills

Accepting Feedback is the #1 social skill that all of my students struggle with.  It can be really hard to accept feedback.  Our entire school works to teach kids how to accept feedback.  Here's the steps that we use.


Rules to teach students on how to accept feedback.

First, students are expected to say, "OK." or "Yes, ma'am." Then, they should do whatever they were asked.  If a student accepts feedback and complies with the adult's request, then the situation is over and we all move on.  The problem occurs when students argue or refuse to do what is asked of them.  

Example:  Student is talking to classmate while teacher is teaching.  Teacher: Student please stop talking.  Student: OK.  Teacher: Thank you for accepting feedback.

This is what we want to happen.  You ask a student to stop a behavior and he/she does it.  Children are not robots and we wouldn't want them to be robots.  

Example: Student is talking to classmate while teacher is teaching.  Teacher: Student please stop talking.  Student: But he was talking too! 

This is how students try to suck us into an argument or get us off track and waste time.  How do you avoid the giant waste of time?  Repeat your direction and nothing more.  "I need you to accept feedback and stop talking.  Your response is, "Ok."  Turn and address the other student if needed and then continue to teach.

We practice this several times at the beginning of the year and revisit this topic throughout the year. 

If the student needs to explain more about the situation, they can bring it up later when we both have time to talk about it.  I explain to my students that sometimes I don't see the entire situation.  If that's the case, they should let me know.  If I am wrong/missed something I will make it right.  This conversation doesn't need to occur during teaching time.  It can occur during quiet work time, a transition, or recess.  

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