Big Universe

For the next three weeks, all students in grades one through four will become acquainted with Big Universe. We are fortunate that we have a district subscription to Big Universe for grades K-6. Students have 24/7 access to over 7,000 eBooks from 35 different publishers. The database of books is levelized based on Fountas & Pinnell reading levels and are standards aligned. Students will practice searching for books using filters such as their F & P reading level or grade level, genres, and fiction type. They will also learn how to use the features in the Write Program to create a book on their own.

Students find reading the eBooks highly motivating. They particularly enjoy adding their favorite books to their bookshelves. They have the ability to “friend” other students enrolled in our MSD subscription and send them a preformatted friendly message that they choose from a drop down list. The messages give compliments to their friends’ work or ask them to check out their bookshelf so they can share titles that they are reading. Big Universe promotes student discussion about text-to-text, text-to-self, and text-to-real world connections.

Big Universe is more than just a resource for students to read books. It is an interactive resource that engages students in reading, writing, listening, and sharing. It is a great tool for providing differentiation of instruction. Students can engage in project based learning activities. With the vast number of nonfiction texts available, students can conduct research using books at their independent reading level allowing them to be active participants in their learning.

The writing feature of Big Universe allows students to self-publish books for a variety of writing purposes and audiences. Students can create books of their small moment stories. They can demonstrate their understanding of social studies and science concepts by creating nonfiction books on topics such as weather, the human body, planets, Native American tribes, world cultures, animals, ecosystems and biomes, butterflies, etc. There are over 7,000 pieces of clipart for students to choose from to illustrate their books. If they don’t find something that matches up with their topic in the clipart gallery, they can create their own drawings in programs such as KidPix or Paint and upload them to Big Universe. They can also import pictures from search engines.

Big Universe provides teachers with the opportunity to assess students based on Common Core Standards. There are many books in the Big Universe collection that can serve as mentor texts when teaching standards. If you project the eBooks on a whiteboard, you can pause the stories to underline words and passages, make inferences, draw conclusions, and look at pictures and diagrams. There are a number of uses for Big Universe in the classroom. Teachers can use it for guided reading or whole class instruction, creating and developing lessons, practicing Smarter Balanced Testing basics, and for Response to Intervention (RTI). Please visit the following links to learn how you can use Big Universe in these capacities with students. At the bottom of the second link there are short 1 minute video testimonials from various teachers sharing how they use Big Universe in their classrooms.

https://www.biguniverse.com/main/learn

https://www.biguniverse.com/main/buinaction

A wonderful feature of our subscription is that the students can access Big Universe from home from any devise. What a fun way to get that 20 minutes of reading in!