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Hi parents!

I just wanted to remind you that many of your children love blogging. Many students are writing during our Daily 5 writing time and many of them continue to write on their blogs when they are on vacation, at home sick or on the weekend. I am amazed at how keen some of the students are. It is not required that each child writes on their blog, many children choose to write in their books and not on the blogs and are filling mountains of paper!

I do want to encourage you to comment on your child's or even other children's blog.   One of the reasons that blogging is so encouraging to students is that they are writing for a larger audience than just their teacher. (I wrote a blog post on our professional blog here if you are interested in reading more)

Please stop by our student blogs by clicking on the picture below.

Our individual student blogs

Next week we are going to write about our wonderful day on Friday at the Port Hardy Public Works Yard.  Did you know that your child can now drive a backhoe?

 

I have had parents, teachers and students all ask me why I have Kindergarten and Grade 1's blogging.  I even ask myself in the beginning of each year, when the learning curve is steep and I feel a bit overwhelmed by new students, this same question.  My answer to this has varied slightly as I read and connect with other teachers around the globe who also use this tool but my main goal continues to help students learn to write.

In Kindergarten and in Grade 1 we are learning the basics of writing and the purposes for writing, blogging gives us both opportunities.  Communicating with the world is the main reason children write, these communication tools are changing for my young students.  Through blogging they can see how powerful writing can be and a real purpose in writing for an audience.  Their blogs are also a showcase for their learning .  Their progress is clearly evident on these blogs, students can see it, parents can see it and I can see it.  The interesting thing I find is that several students have been extremely motivated to use this tool to write while other students clearly enjoy the paper and pencil form.  Why? I am not sure but I do always see an importance for giving students choice while offering a variety of forms of communication.

In my Sunday morning coffee/google reader/twitter/internet session I found this interesting post with some great links.  Henrietta Miller's blog Techie Brekkie  was particularly interesting in her post about Blogging in a Primary School and one of her links include this great video from Rachel Boyd  Why let our students blog?  Rachel has said it well on this video I am sure I do not need to recreate this wheel.  Thank you Rachel for sharing your ideas.

Do you see blogging as a useful way to teach writing skills?  What challenges or concerns do you have with this writing form?  Why you think some students are more motivated to communicate digitally than others?

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