ECS Blog

SMARTcookie Activity Jar™ – Setting the Scene and the Rules

SMARTcookie Squad — Mon, 14 May 2012 07:00:13 +0000

Get the day started off right with our latest treats from the SMARTcookie Activity Jar™!

K-5 SMARTcookie Jar Activity of the Week

Setting the Scene

Story Formula -

2 Movie Stars + 1 monkey + 1 City Bus =

How Does the story begin?

What adventures happen?

How does the story end?

Activity from – “Reading and Writing on the Chalkboard” product number ECS2339

Middle-School & High-School SMARTcookie Jar Activity of the Week

Setting the Rules

Your family is traveling in a wagon train in 1820.

List three rules everyone must follow.

What kind of supplies would you need for a trip that lasts weeks?

Activity from – “Quick Thinking Grades 7-12” product number ECS948X

Click here to find more challenging eActivities and eBooks on our website.

SMARTcookie Activity Jar™ – Superhero School and Pets

SMARTcookie Squad — Mon, 07 May 2012 07:00:27 +0000

Marvel’s The Avengers hit theaters this past weekend! Let’s get the week started off right with great Superhero themed treats from the SMARTcookie Activity Jar™!

K-5 SMARTcookie Jar Activity of the Week

Superhero School

You just got accepted to Superhero school!

What is your new Superhero name?

What classes would you take?

What’s your favorite “power” to learn?

Design a Superhero outfit.

Middle-School & High-School SMARTcookie Jar Activity of the Week

Superhero Pets

You just found out that your pet has a Superhero power.

What kind of pet is it?

What power does your pet have?

Do you plan to tell others about the power?

Does your pet know it has a Superhero power?

Write a Superhero adventure about your pet.

Click here to find more challenging eActivities and eBooks on our website.

We Love Literature, YOU, and Chicago!

SMARTcookie Squad — Wed, 02 May 2012 04:27:15 +0000

At Novel Units, we love literature…and meeting great educators who also love literature…and all of the historical sites and arts of Chicago! So, it is safe to say we are having a wonderful time at the International Reading Association (IRA) 57th Annual Convention in Chicago, Illinois (April 29 to May 2, 2012).

By the way, we love the theme this year—Celebrate Teaching!

If you are attending IRA, we hope you visit us at booth #1411 and see our best resources, including Get Reading!!™, TestSMART®, and the most popular Novel Units® titles.

Thank you to the educators who have visited and shared positive feedback about our materials. Here are just a few comments:

“They [Novel Units] are really good. They work well for diverse learners and there are lots of activities.”

—D. Benedict, Teacher, Canada

“Love Novel Units…great activities for integrating best literacy practices at your fingertips.”

—Cindy J., Wyoming

Chicago has so many points of interest. This evening after the IRA conference, we had a fine time touring this great city! First stop…Wrigley Field, of course!

Historic Wrigley Field

SUE the T. rex at The Field Museum. She is the largest, most complete, best preserved. (Okay, so if you follow us on Facebook, you know we visited her earlier in the week, not tonight…but love SUE so much we had to include her in our Chicago photo tour.)

Second City is the improv/comedy club that gave many famous comedians and comediennes their first start.

Billy Goat Tavern is famous for many things, among them old Saturday Night Live sketches.

The Art Institute of Chicago houses A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Gran de Jatte.

Also…American Gothic.

There is so much more to see as Chicago celebrates its 175th anniversary! We have one more day here as IRA 2012 comes to a close, so we plan to celebrate Chicago and spring by visiting the Tulips on the Magnificent Mile, an annual installation featuring thousands of blooms during the month of May. Hope you are taking many great ideas and resources back to your classrooms…happy IRA!

SMARTcookie Activity Jar™ – Artist or Chef and New Creations

SMARTcookie Squad — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 07:00:23 +0000

Get the day started off right with our latest treats from the SMARTcookie Activity Jar™!

K-5 SMARTcookie Jar Activity of the Week

Artist or Chef

What would you rather be, an artist or a chef?

Why?

What do an artist and a chef have in common?

How are an artist and a chef different?

Write about your own creation as an artist or a chef.

Activity from – “The Little Red Writing Book – Book 3” product number ECS109X

Middle-School & High-School SMARTcookie Jar Activity of the Week

New Creations

What could you make with some clay, toothpicks, and pebbles?

How large would your creation be?

What would it do?

What would be its best characteristic?

How would others react to your creation? Why?

Activity from – “Writing Warm-Ups Two” product number ECS9463

Click here to find more challenging eActivities and eBooks on our website.

SMARTcookie Activity Jar™ – You can recycle that!

SMARTcookie Squad — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 07:00:48 +0000

April 22nd was Earth Day, but that does not mean your classroom cannot participate in some great Earth Day Activities all week and year. Get the day started off right with our latest treats from the Earth Day themed SMARTcookie Activity Jar™!

K-5 SMARTcookie Jar Activity of the Week

Composting

Have your class read about composting, its uses at home, and its benefits to the environment.

Then have each student bring a plastic bin to class and decorate it for their own at home compost bin to use with their family.

Here’s a great outline of a composting project from Kaboose.com! http://crafts.kaboose.com/compost-bin.html

Middle-School & High-School SMARTcookie Jar Activity of the Week

You can recycle that!

Have students survey fellow classmates to see how much they recycle at school, when out shopping/eating, and at home. Determine where students recycle the most and then create a marketing campaign to increase recycling habits elsewhere.

Click here to find more challenging eActivities and eBooks on our website.

Earth Day Project with a Touch of History

SMARTcookie Squad — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 17:06:31 +0000

Recently, a few members of the ECS team had the opportunity to visit Washington, DC during the 2012 Centennial celebration of the National Cherry Blossom Festival, and we thought of you! How about an Earth Day project with a touch of national history?

In Washington, DC, citizens from across the country have been celebrating the 100th anniversary of the National Cherry Blossom Festival. The five-week celebration, held from March 20 to April 27, 2012, includes performing arts, visual arts, and guided tours. Of course, the splendor of the cherry blossom trees is the main attraction. Visitors can even see a few of the original 3,000 trees gifted to DC by Tokyo, Japan.

The festival has an extensive Web site at nationalcherryblossomfestival.org. Use this great resource for a social studies lesson or celebrate Earth Day by hosting your own tree-planting project.

Our team captured this amazing view of the cherry blossoms with the historic DC backdrop.

SMARTcookie Activity Jar™ – New Inventions and Creating Math Formulas

SMARTcookie Squad — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 07:00:10 +0000

Get the day started off right with our latest treats from the SMARTcookie Activity Jar™!

K-5 SMARTcookie Jar Activity of the Week

My New Invention

You have a marble, a pencil, and a cup. What could you make? Describe your new “invention”, including its applications.

Activity from – “Quick Thinking Grades K-6” product number ECS9471

Middle-School & High-School SMARTcookie Jar Activity of the Week

Creating Math Formulas

Use the numbers 2, 3, 5, 6, and 7 and any operation(s) to arrive at the answer 15. Try to create 10 different math problems.

Activity from – “Quick Thinking Grades 7-12” product number ECS948X

Click here to find more challenging eActivities and eBooks on our website.

Celebrating Novel Units 25 Years!

SMARTcookie Squad — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 15:35:50 +0000

Thank you for bringing Novel Units® literature guides into your classrooms for 25 years!

Don’t forget our one-day 25th Anniversary Sale-a-bration on April 12! “Like” us on Facebook and get a 25% off coupon code!

Our ECS and Novel Units team is proud to celebrate 25 years of sharing our love of literature! Take a look back at the Novel Units story…

In 1987, two college professors founded Novel Units at a kitchen table in Palatine, Illinois.

In 1998, ECS Learning Systems acquired the company and moved it to our hometown of Bulverde, Texas.

Today, literature remains at the heart of what we do. With 1,345 Novel Units available, we offer two complete guides for hundreds of novels, so you can immerse students in the titles you want to teach.

Over the years, we have added more time savers, including Student Packet Value Packs, Novel Units Collections, Get Reading!! Multi-Level Thematic Kits, and Standards Based End-of-Book Tests™. Now we also offer eBooks, giving you the same quality Novel Units guides in an instant! You gain hours of time, not to mention peace of mind.

We continue to add new titles and revise existing titles…always keeping your requests top of mind. Teachers love our selection because we offer the highest quality content for tried-and-true titles, as well as the latest great novels such as The Hunger Games.

Build STAAR™ Test Confidence with STAAR Practice Tests

SMARTcookie Squad — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 21:26:17 +0000

With more STAAR™ test dates just weeks away, we know you need resources you can use today! Build test confidence with STAAR MASTER® Practice Tests.

Help students gain extra practice and build test confidence with STAAR MASTER Practice Tests.

Plus, a free Teacher Guide is included.

With STAAR MASTER Practice Tests, students focus on mastery of all required skills and build test-taking confidence. Teachers easily address all the STAAR-eligible TEKS and ensure depth of understanding based on built-in complexity levels. STAAR MASTER materials reflect the types of questions students might encounter on the actual STAAR.

Place your order today with confidence. STAAR is already here, and we are with you every step of the way:

Available. Within 48 hours, we ship your STAAR MASTER order from Bulverde, Texas.
Credible. Teachers all over Texas are already saying that STAAR MASTER is just what they need to prepare students for the rigor of STAAR.
Authentic. STAAR MASTER is the best resource available and the only series developed “from scratch” specifically for STAAR.
Fresh. We offer two all-new quality resources — the STAAR MASTER Student Practice Books and the STAAR MASTER Practice Tests.

For more information about the STAAR MASTER series, please visit us at ecslearningsystems.com/staarmaster.

Make sure your students are fully prepared and confident before the STAAR test. Order your STAAR MASTER Practice Tests today!

SMARTcookie Activity Jar™ – New Holiday and Famous Meeting

SMARTcookie Squad — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 14:47:06 +0000

Get the day started off right with our latest treats from the SMARTcookie Activity Jar™!

K-5 SMARTcookie Jar Activity of the Week

My Very Own Holiday

Create a new holiday. What will it celebrate? How will you celebrate?

Activity from – “Writing Warm-Ups” product number ECS9072

Middle-School & High-School SMARTcookie Jar Activity of the Week

A Day with Mr. Washington

How would you spend the day with your favorite historical character?

Elaboration Questions:

What would you talk about? Why?
Where would you have lunch? Why?
What would you order for lunch? Why?
What would you want this person to see? Why?
What would you try not to do? Why?

Activity from – “Writing Warm-Ups Two” product number ECS9463

Click here to find more challenging eActivities and eBooks on our website.