Our blogs are up and running smoothly (http://kidblog.org/Theblogsof5J-2/) and I’m excited about the product that we are starting to get out of them.  Fairly well written sentences, a little bit of depth to the writing, capitalization, some varied sentences, and a sense that we are writing for a bigger audience.  I’m trying to expand my own mind, thinking how we can use the blogs, their writing in place of the work sheets, asking for this type of sentence or x number of this punctuation, all the while, writing.

 

On one of those blogs, we talked about citing sources, and my goodness it was difficult to get that through.  We can’t just randomly make up things, that we have to make sure that we document where our information comes from, just in case someone (me) wants to double check, or someone (me) wants to see what else is out there on a certain subject.  We used EasyBib (http://www.easybib.com/) and for some it wasn’t too bad, others it was a major pain, and for one or two it wouldn’t even work.  Needless to say I doubted myself in actually trying to teach that.

 

Well, today we wrote another blog, and I’ve been a little more active in trying to get comments for my kids.  Who doesn’t like to see that someone’s been reading their writing, so if you do blog with your students, tweet out your blog on #comments4kids and they will get some feedback.  Awesome people who are out there, spending their days reading kid writing….you deserve a metal.  Or at least a beer.  But I digress! 🙂  I’d been working out getting our blogs out there, and sure enough, some comments for my kids, which is awesome.

 

For me, this was my day maker:

@AnIowaTeacher I like how your students site their sources in their blog posts!

 

Day made.  Right there.  Somedays, it’s not only about the feedback our kids get, but it’s about the feedback that WE get too that can make or break a day.  I just want to say thank you to that person for making that comment as it certainly brightened my day!

 

And, yes, we’ll be documenting again soon! 😉