Resources

This is our sample kindergarten and grade one blog.  Our goal with this blog was to show what a blog would look like for the youngest of students. This blog is not an individual blog, but one where all members of the class can contribute, along with parents.   


How to teach blogging to grade kindergarten and grade one's

1. Choose a platform – Decide how much, if any, of the blog should be private. We created a public blog, since all students and parents would need access.  Considering the number of parents who would be reading/commenting on the blog, there would be more than a sufficient amount of monitoring happening.  
2. Set guidelines for students - Topics used? Do they need approval to write/comment? Is grammar/spelling important?  We see most of the posts being written with help from parents or the teacher.  Students are encouraged to write to their class mascot, Mellie, about anything that they would like.  The teacher would also suggest weekly topics to the parents via email.  
3. Teach your kids – Explain what blogging is and how it works, show them other student blogs, explicitly teach how to contribute quality comments to other blogs. 
4. Define a purpose for each blog – Create a focus for the student.  Students are always writing to someone, in our case it is their class mascot.  
5. Emphasize content over form – Blog must be readable, but should be an informal writing process. 
6. Don’t forget multimedia – Teach how to embed photos, videos, add links. Students will be able to select multimedia and then include them in their posts with the help on an adult.  
7. Put safety first – Teach the difference between criticism and commentary. Students are responsible for everything that they write.  
8. Look for inspiration – Read other blogs for inspiration.  

Things to consider when setting up blogs for grade kindergarten and grade one

1. Setting up a parent night to teach the parents on how to set up a blog for their child.
2. Go over safety of the blog
3.Parents need to be one hundred percent on board for their child in order for the blog to work.
4.Needs to be visited minimally every week.

Link to a working blog for a kindergarten/one student

http://emscanvas.blogspot.ca/