Valentine’s Sale!!

Good News — Valentine’s Day Sale Going On Now!!

Beginning today, the School eBookstore is having a Valentine’s Sale!  Get 10% off your Entire Order from now until Valentine’s Day!  Just pick out all your favorite eBooks, add them to your shopping cart, and then simply type in the Coupon Code Feb2010 when you Check Out to receive your Discount.  Don’t miss it!!

Both Evan-Moor and Teacher Created Resources have added to their inventory at the School eStore.  Teacher Created added 11 new eBooks, while Evan-Moor did some extensive revisions and upgrades, with a total of 68 new products that are now available.  Be sure to check out all the new resources!

Instant Teaching Resources

Technology has reinvented so many things in our lives, and it is changing the teaching profession, too. But like the rest of the world, sometimes the changes happen so fast that it is hard to keep up with everything. Enter the world of educational eBooks. This is one of the newer advantages that technology has brought to teachers, but too many teachers simply don’t know what eBooks are and how these books can make their lives easier.

It used to be that every time teachers needed another teaching idea for their classroom, they had to either get in the car and drive to their local (or not so local) teachers supply store, or they could leaf through a teacher supply catalog, fill out the order form, send it in, pay the shipping charges, and wait for it to arrive. But things have certainly changed.

Teaching resources have become as easy to come by as simply clicking a few buttons and downloading them to a personal or school computer. This means no shipping fees, no waiting times, no clutter on your shelves when they do arrive, and no hassles. And these are the same books by the same publishers that you would find at the store or in the teaching supply catalogs.

Unfortunately, many teachers don’t even know what an ebook is, or that they are available just for them. These books are not only instant, all classroom activities can be printed right from the downloaded file. Let’s say a teacher needs an activity on multiplication—but he or she needs it today. With ebooks, that is not a problem. Download the book, print out the pages needed, and the problem is solved.

What makes ebooks even better is that they can be used with another new and amazing advantage in technology: the SMART board. SMART boards are interactive whiteboards, and they are also sold by other manufacturers and called by other names. These boards can use PDF files, and that’s where ebooks come in. The downloadable ebooks are PDF files.

As if all this isn’t enough, there’s more. Most ebooks now come in Enhanced versions. This means that the text in the books can be moved, allowing the teacher to rearrange the book’s content to suit individual needs. You just can’t do that with a printed, paper copy.

Teachers, like everyone else, will find that technology can be mind-blowingly fast, and it can be confusing. But the good news is that at the end of the day, if you take the time to learn just a few small, new things, the new technology can make your life a whole lot easier. The world of educational eBooks opens up a whole host of advantages for teachers.

Evan-Moor: Vocabulary Fundamentals & more!

Evan-Moor just released 20 new ebook titles, all of which are available today.  Vocabulary Fundamentals is a mini-series, with separate editions for Grades 1-4.  Also, Read & Understand with Leveled Texts is set up the same way, reaching Grades K - 3 (links here take you to Grade 1 for both product lines).

For social studies, check out the new Beginning Geography!

Lastly, they now offer a new Daily Language Review for Grade 7.

All of these ebooks come in both regular and enhanced formats.

60 New eBooks from Saddleback Publishing

The School eBookstore has 60 additional titles from Saddleback Publishing.  And now is the time to buy while our “Everything is on Sale” Sale is still in gear!

Teachers Books On Sale

Every Teacher Resource Book at School eBookstore is on sale!  The entire inventory is offered at reduced prices, with an even greater discount on the featured sale items.  This sale will continue through the end of September, so take advantage of it now.

What are Enhanced eBooks?

Educational publishers are offering more and more of their inventory in the Enhanced eBook format.  What is an Enhanced eBook?  The difference between a standard edition and an enhanced edition of an ebook lies in whether or not you are able to cut and paste content.  A normal PDF eBook from the School eBookstore allows you to print out  pages for your students, but does not allow copying and pasting of any content.    The enhanced eBook gives you the flexibility to copy a segment of TEXT, and paste it on another word processing page, allowing you to rearrange content to suit your needs.  However, images or illustrations are not included.  The only content that can be manipulated in the enhanced ebooks is the text.

100 Riddle Poems for Pocket Charts

100 Riddle Poems for Pocket Charts from Scholastic gives you the tools to bring out the creativity in any child. Copy the riddles to use with your own pocket chart, and follow the instructions for the prepared activities. Kids love riddles & guessing games, which makes this a great tool to teach phonics, rhyming, or even to inspire your kids to write poems of their own. Suggested activities are given for you to adapt to the ages and abilities of your own classroom. The book includes 15 different themes, each with its own printable picture cards and activities. Also given are suggested extended activities and reading books to complement the theme.

The book is also available in an enhanced eBook, which allows you to copy & paste the text on the page and rearrange it to suit your needs.

History Pockets: Ancient Greece (grades 4-6)

Evan-Moor History Pockets: Ancient Greece (Grades 4-6)

History Pockets: Ancient Greece (Grades 4-6) is just one book of an entire fabulous series of fun, hands-on social studies activities. The books are packed with projects, all of which are meant to be photocopied for each student. The series consists of several titles for Grades 1-3 and several for Grades 4-6.

The book is divided into themes, such as Daily Life, Government, Religion, etc. Each theme has several projects that will fit into a “pocket” made from folded construction paper. The pockets are then hole-punched and bound together with string or ribbon to create a Pocket Book. Since all of these projects will lay flat, I have had great sucess just adapting several favorite activities to add individaully to each student’s History Notebook without making p0ckets.

The History Pockets: Ancient Greece has decorated Facts pages, a Map activity, and a Timeline that is ready to cut out and assemble. The Timeline guides the student with illustrations and captions to add information as they progress. You will also find writing activities, creative booklets to put together and decorate, and plenty of low-fuss crafts. In this book, the crafts include making a Hoplite Shield, an Alexander the Great banner, Mosaic (paper) tiles, a booklet of Olympian gods, Greek coins, and more. The instructions for Knucklebones tells you first how to make the game, and then how to play it.

The book is 96 pages long, and most of those pages are meant to be photocopied for student use, giving you lots of ideas to choose from. It has instructions for 9 separate pockets, each offering several activities on a different theme of Ancient Greece, including Daily Life, Religion, Military Power, Art & Architecture, Government, Sports & Entertainment, and more. It is also offered in an enhanced eBook, which allows you to copy & paste text on the page and rearrange it to suit your needs.

Social Studies Fast Facts

Social Studies Fast Facts is perfect for classroom social studies games! The entire book is made up of pages of reproducible fact cards, each about 2″X4″, with a question on one side and the answer on the other. Topics are US States & Capitals, US Presidents, American History, Famous Americans, and US Geography. There are a total of 600 cards in the entire book.

A simple classroom game is to line up the students in two teams, placing them so that each student is opposite another student who is on a similar academic level. The 2 at the head of the line get the first question, and the student who answers it right gets to keep the card. Then they go to the end of the line. If you have a round where neither of the students know the answer, use a different card and save the unanswered card for later in the game. When you are out of cards, have the teams group up and count their cards. I like to give the winning team Smarties–smart candy for smart kids!!

Another favorite classroom game is Jeopardy, although this takes a little more pre-class preparation. Organize your cards into categories, and assign them dollar values. Draw a Jeopardy Board on the blackboard, with the categories at the top and the dollar values in the squares–just like the TV version of the game. Divide your classroom into 3 or 4 teams, and play the game just like TV. (The teams can work together, or team members can take turns competing for each question.) When a question is used up, simply mark off that square on the blackboard, keeping score on another part of the board. If you play more than one round, it’s not hard to quickly redraw a Jeopardy board for the new round.

Teachers Books

This blog consists of reviews of teaching books available at SchooleBookstore.com. These books offer creative ideas for classroom games & student enrichment worksheet & activities. Since the selection is so large, the blog exists to help you decide which book best meets your needs!