First Grade Research is EPIC!

Have you used EPIC!?  I'm a big big EPIC! fan.  It's a free website/app that has a TON of ebooks. It has a lot of non-fiction, graphic novels and popular titles (my kids love Scaredy Squirrel).  It has an AR reading level and some of the books have a "Read-to-me" option.  Did I mention it was free- whaaaaaaaaaatttt??!!!

Which brings me to our first research project for my first graders.  As the season changed, they were studying fall.  I didn't have a lot of non-fiction books about fall that were on a first grade reading level.  Good ole' EPIC! had 7 titles for my kids- all in their reading level range!  In my library, I have 8 computers and 8 iPads.  The kids on the computer worked alone (because they needed headphones) and the rest worked with a partner on the iPads.  Each person got a leaf and they had to write down one fact that they learned about fall.  After sharing, they glued it on the bare tree that I had prepared and the end result was a Fall Research Tree.  Easy, effective and a great use of resources!

During the lesson, we were also able to talk about what research is, why we research and even fiction/non-fiction (there was another book called Humpty Dumpty's Great Fall that came up when they searched "Fall" -would that work for our research?  would this be good information for our research?)

And yes...all the 1st grade teachers in my building are this cute!  Love these girls!




   

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