Working With Some New Bloggers...

Caleb's class has started a project recently called "Quadblogging." They are teamed up with three other schools around the world. For three weeks they are the readers and commenters on the blog posts and, for one week, they are the primary writers and contributors to the blog. I think this is a SUPER COOL project! What a great way to work on your writing skills, have a built-in audience that will respond to your writing, and learn about different parts of the world through this awesome interaction. You can read more about the Quadblogging project here.

Now, Caleb knows that I blog regularly so he asked me to send his teacher, Mr. G, a link to my blog - which I gladly did, along with a note saying I would be happy to come in and help when the kids started their blogs. (Yeah...I can only stay away from the classroom so long and then I need to teach and be with kids.) So, today he took me up on my offer.

The kids were fantastic. I explained why I started my blog - as a means of sharing our Malaysian adventure with family and friends. I talked a little about what I blog about: where we travel, things I do, Caleb and Grayson, my Fab 5 Fridays, things we find funny and amusing (or not so funny and amusing) about living here in Malaysia - just about our everyday life. One girl asked me which blog post was my favourite and why. It was definitely the one about being homesick/grumpy here in Malaysia at the beginning of August. I explained that lots of people responded to that blog with kind words and made me see that my feelings were normal. The fact that someone had read my blog was enough to make me feel better. We also talked about internet safety and then we got into the heart of their project - What were they going to blog about?

Mr. G and his 3rd grade class

 

In pairs, they each came up with three topics related to school that could be possible blogs. Next, they were to work in their writing notebooks to come up with a few sentences to start their blog topics. We talked about grabbing the audience's attention, creative titles and asking questions in blog posts so that readers will respond. I explained that even I keep a running list of possible topics - and while mine isn't in a notebook, I keep it in my phone!

 

The kids working on their topics and a screen shot of my blog topics for this week

 

Starting a blog post is hard for everyone - adults and third graders alike. What am I going to say? Does this sound silly? Will anyone read it? Is it going to grab their attention? I think about these things every time I blog...and these 3rd graders were having the same problems getting started. But, once they got going - there was some AMAZING writing going on! One girl was going to write about Pirates! The Musical that is going on at school and her opening line was: Yo, ho, ho! (That's  some good stuff!) There were lots of posts about P.E. - because everyone loves P.E.! Silas wrote about playing badminton with some friends - and it was awesome! You wanted to know more about his match against his friends. And the kids definitely learned to ask their readers questions - because that's how they KNOW someone will respond to their blog post. Do you play floor hockey at your school? Do you like blogging? Can you come up with the sum for this math problem? Those are just a few of the things that the kids wanted responses to!

 

The class uses Blogger/BlogSpot just like me...so it was easy to work with them.

 

Hard at work on the Chromebooks

 

Most of the class had a good start on their first blog post. And I can't wait to read them all and see how the other schools respond! Hopefully, I can come back and help them finish their posts in the near future!

 



 Me and Mr. G's Third Grade Bloggers

 

Good luck bloggers! Keep writing! Ask questions! Share details! Let me know if you need anymore help!