JPS Tech News 1
Term 1, 2020
Reading and Maths Resources
Epic! Books
How to use Epic in the Classroom
2. Project Epic! on your interactive whiteboard to teach a specific skill or strategy
3. Use non-fiction books for research projects, such as reports on animals
4. Students create a “wish list” of books and then partner up to explain their list
5. Epic! is perfect for Read Aloud, Shared Reading & Independent Reading time
6. Compare two books by the same author
7. Students create book reviews and recommend favorites to classmates
8. Expose students to different expressions and intonations using Read-to-Me books
9. Perform experiments using ideas in Epic!’s STEM books
10. Create book commercials using multimedia tools such as iMovie, Telestory, or ChatterPix
Kids News
How to use Kids News in the classroom
Kids News is a ready to go resource tool for teachers using current daily news stories for students in the classroom with three reading levels catered for.
The content is written into child appropriate language and filtered/censored to remove any inappropriate content or imagery. The site does not link to any outside news sources or sites, therefore pupils can use it safely in an unsupervised environment or for independent learning.
Kids News has been tested with students in years 3-6, however we believe it can be used with some students above and below this range.
Two new articles are added to Kids News each school day. All new content is featured at the top of the homepage. The articles are divided into three categories which have been tested as most popular with students:
- News — covering current affairs
- Light and Bright — quirky, funny, interesting stories about people, animals and things.
- Sport — Australian and international sports events and people.
Each article includes:
- A headline, lead image and text.
- Multiple secondary images help tell the story visually and sometimes articles contain picture galleries.
- We have included an audio file (using SoundCloud) so students can listen to the text as they read and assist with comprehension.
- Each story contains a Glossary of terms and words that students may be unfamiliar with.
- Video is included where possible.
- A feedback comments box is featured at the base of the article and children are encouraged to write their thoughts on the news stories. These comments are moderated by Kids News and comments posted on the stories. Comments that include a student’s surname will not be published. Encourage students to write comments that contribute to the views of the article
Teacher's Guide
How to use Read Theory in the Classroom
When you log into your teacher account for the very first time, the site will walk you through the necessary steps to create accounts on your students’ behalves. All you’ll need to do is enter their first and last names, or their initials if you feel more comfortable keeping their names private.
On ReadTheory, reading levels are never assigned manually. All students logging in for the first time will need to take our placement pretest, which starts on a third grade level by default. If that material is too difficult, the pretest will immediately adjust to show first and second grade material instead. Similarly, if it's too easy, the pretest will progressively move up to grades four, five, and beyond.
All students will be moving within a range of levels at all times so that they will be continually challenged. This provides for maximum differentiation and individualized learning. Our site is fully interactive and responsive, so students will only ever see content based on their previous performance.
On ReadTheory, individual passages are never assigned manually. After our placement pretest, students will be placed at a level, and our program will draw a passage at random from within that level for the student.
Each time a student passes a full quiz (scores between 70% and 89%), the student remains at the same level. If the student fails the quiz (scores 69% or less), then the quiz is replaced into the pool of available quizzes and the student's level decreases. If the student performs outstandingly on the quiz (scores 90% or more), the student's level increases. In each case, a new quiz will be randomly drawn from the appropriate pool of available quizzes at the student’s level.
How to use Newsela in the classroom
Prodigy Maths
Prodigy is a free, online, maths-based, curriculum aligned, role playing game.
Join 250,000 teachers and over 5 million students in using the game that will revolutionize the way you approach maths instruction!
Featuring over 50,000 questions spanning Grades 1 - 8 in 4 different curricula, players will get to watch their very own wizard grow stronger, learn new spells and acquire new equipment while facing ever more powerful opponents, all by answering maths questions!
What makes it even better is that it will adapt by itself to ensure that your student/child is receiving the right material at the right time.
The game is self-paced, so while you might have a classroom of students all working at different levels within the curriculum, they'll still get to experience the same rich and exciting world, while each one is working on the content that is right for them.
Our goal is to make every child absolutely love doing maths!
Registration is always free and gives you access to all of our educational content and teacher tools including assignment creation and comprehensive reports.