Getting Started with Epic! Books

The FREE app Epic! is an amazing resource for classrooms, providing students with access to thousands of books. Using this app is so easy, but it does take a little initial set up. It's important to set up an account as an EDUCATOR, so it's free. I also recommend setting up student profiles. It only takes a few minutes, and it allows each student to save their favorite books and preferences, as well as you to track their progress and save their reading logs. Keep reading to see how to get started.

Begin by creating an account for yourself. To set up your account, go to www.getepic.com and choose Educators.

You'll be prompted to create a free educator account. Once your account is created, sign in and go to your Dashboard. Here is where you can add student profiles. Just click "create profile" and enter your students' names. I don't set a pin, as I want them to login easily, but you could certainly set a security pin if you felt this was necessary in your classroom.

You can see that once a profile is created, you can choose "Profile Options" under each child and see you have options to customize, view activity, assign collections, etc. It's good to know that you can send your students collections & assignments via Epic!, but it's not necessary. 

Another option that a lot of teachers aren't aware of is that you do have the ability to turn off videos, if you want your students to only have access to books on Epic! To do that, click, the three lines in the righthand corner that say More and choose Account Settings. Here you can choose to disable Learning Videos. I like using the learning videos on Epic! to let young students do research for projects, but I do understand that it can sometimes be a distraction if you're using at a center and you just want them to read. :) 

IMPORTANT: Once you have created your account and set up student profiles, you will need to open the app on each iPad and login to your account. You'll only need to do this once. After you're signed in, it will keep them signed in. Then, students will just choose their profile from the app and begin reading.

You'll also notice that on the student profile page, you have the option to enable parent access. This simply gives parents and students a 30 day free trial to the home version, and connects their home accounts to their school accounts. To keep Epic! free for teachers and classrooms, it is NOT free for students to use at home. I believe it costs $7.99/month for home access, however, if parents purchase during the holidays or other "special deal" times, they can get a subscription for $5-6/month.

Once you get comfortable with Epic!, be sure to check out my friend Sara's website. Each month she curates a collection of books for a collaborative project called #EpicPals! Your students can read books and then connect with students around the country to discuss the stories.