Blogging Practice

 Last week we talked about all of the different kinds of writing people can do, and we definitely mentioned blogging. When I told the students that kids can have blogs, they were very excited. We looked at many different examples of blogs for different purposes, including this blog, my family blog, a food blog, etc. We talked about the audience for each blog and how the writer has to think about his or her audience.

Then we practiced writing our first blog post on paper. Each student wrote an introductory blog post describing him or herself and talking about things they enjoying doing. Everyone worked hard and took this assignment seriously.

The following day we talked about the importance of commenting on blogs. We watched a video made by a second grade class at a different school about how to comment. We then made a list of comment starters and talked about what makes the best comments. Then I gave students a stack of sticky notes and told them they would be commenting on each other's blog posts by writing on the sticky notes.

It was amazing! It was silent in the room for 15 minutes while students read their classmates' paper blog posts and wrote comments to each other. They did not want to stop, even though it was time for recess. Students later went back to their blogs and read their comments and we talked about what comments could lead to further conversation. Many students wanted more time so they could respond to questions others had asked them. It was amazing to see them communicating with each other in writing, and being so excited about it.

Madeline and Wyatt read blog posts and write comments.

Sydney and Allison write meaningful comments for their classmates.

An example of a blog post with comments

Another blog post with comments- The long string of sticky notes means a conversation was going on about the same idea.

Stay tuned... next week we begin blogging on kidblog.org.