Ten Things to Love About Epic School

Epic is my favorite place to find quality ebooks for my students. It works on both computers and tablets and there's just so much to love about it! Read on to find out ten things I love about Epic School.

1. Epic's library includes quality reading and viewing content

Epic has a library of more than 40,000 high-quality materials for elementary and middle school students. Students can choose from a variety of trade books, Epic Originals, and videos to read and view online. 

2. Epic has something for everyone.

Students of all levels in elementary and middle school will find engaging content on Epic. Epic even makes sure to include our littlest learners who cannot yet read independently. Emergent readers will enjoy the audiobooks, videos, and read-to-me selections. Teachers can also find beautiful trade books among Epic's library to read aloud to their class.

3. It is easy to search and filter.

You can search Epic's library by author, title, or keyword. Once your search results are returned you can filter them by age, reading level, text type (fiction/nonfiction), format, and language. 

When I use Epic for research projects I teach my 3rd graders to use these filters to find non-fiction books that they will be able to understand.

4. You can create assignments.

If searching and filtering is not right for your students, try creating assignments instead! Student assignments will show up in their mailbox. I like teaching my youngest students to read only from their mailbox to make sure they are engaging with content that is just right for them.

5. You can create collections.

Teachers can save their favorite books to a collection on Epic. I like making themed collections for both general reading interests and for projects. Whole collections can be shared with other educators and assigned to students. Here's how!

6. You can hide content.

Tired of hearing Baby Shark, doo doo doo doo doo? Hide it! Hidden content will no longer show for students in your account. Read more to learn how to hide content.

7. Epic automatically generates reading logs.

Weekly reading logs show the titles students have read and the amount of time they spent reading, their scores on any quizzes, and their progress on their assignments. Visit the Epic Help Center to learn how to view student activity.

8. Monthly activity calendars challenge and engage readers.

Each month Epic puts together an activity calendar. Use this resource to challenge and engage your students in literacy tasks. 

Students love Internet challenges so why not take the #EpicSchoolChallenge? See if your class can complete the entire calendar together.

Rules:

1. The class works together.

2. Some activities can be done by all students.

3. Others can be done by individuals or groups.

To win the class has to complete all of the activities in one month. Work together, not everyone in the class has to do everything.

9. Epic helps you learn.

Visit the educator resources page to access videos as you learn to use Epic School. You can also visit the Epic Help Center to read articles and learn more.

10. It's free.

With free Epic accounts students can read unlimited content between the hours of 7 a.m. - 4 p.m. After 4 p.m. and all weekend long students can read up to two hours per week for free from the Epic Free catalog when their guardian signs up with an adult email address. Learn about the paid options here.