I just visited the blog of a Vermont kindergarten teacher that I follow, Mrs. Davison's Kindergarten. She's got a great kick-off post on digital citizenship, a new bookshelf widget courtesy of Amazon (Put a copy of any book you are using or featuring on your bookshelf), and some photos of her students in action- check it out for inspiration!
Here's one of the dilemmas of blogging: bloggers who don't post very often can lose their followers, but coming up with new and creative posts can be time-consuming. If you develop some "templates" for blog posts that you use with your students, you have a starting point. For example, "Word of the Week:" the original post gives a word and its definition, and student comments give either synonym, antonym or context (i.e. used in a sentence). Or how about "Five Senses Challenge:" the original post gives a setting, say the beach or an ice cream shop (maybe with a photo) and the comments need to add a descriptive sentence using one of the 5 senses. Or post a piece of art or a photo of a place and ask students to write about something they notice, or a question, prediction, reaction, or connection. Feature a link to an eBook belonging to the Benchmark library I(along with any usernmae/password info) and ask students to write something they learned from the book.
A final word: looks like KidBlog has gone commercial - you may use the site free for 30 days, but then there is a charge of $30 per teacher, which is not horribly unreasonable - just that it's more than nothing. So I guess it's up to you whether you would like to use some of your class money for this purpose, or switch over to Blogger, which is free and part of the google world.
Here's one of the dilemmas of blogging: bloggers who don't post very often can lose their followers, but coming up with new and creative posts can be time-consuming. If you develop some "templates" for blog posts that you use with your students, you have a starting point. For example, "Word of the Week:" the original post gives a word and its definition, and student comments give either synonym, antonym or context (i.e. used in a sentence). Or how about "Five Senses Challenge:" the original post gives a setting, say the beach or an ice cream shop (maybe with a photo) and the comments need to add a descriptive sentence using one of the 5 senses. Or post a piece of art or a photo of a place and ask students to write about something they notice, or a question, prediction, reaction, or connection. Feature a link to an eBook belonging to the Benchmark library I(along with any usernmae/password info) and ask students to write something they learned from the book.
A final word: looks like KidBlog has gone commercial - you may use the site free for 30 days, but then there is a charge of $30 per teacher, which is not horribly unreasonable - just that it's more than nothing. So I guess it's up to you whether you would like to use some of your class money for this purpose, or switch over to Blogger, which is free and part of the google world.
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