Week+1+Term+3+Blogging+fame

The start of another term and a chance to fine tune our system of publishing and try out strategies to encourage the children to make comments on the blog.
 * Week 1 Term 3 Bloggers wall of fame ||
 * Monday

I introduced the children to the ' bloggers wall of fame' as a way to encourage the children to make comments on the blog. It's a series of laminated cards where I record the names of children as they comment on the blog in a variety of ways. Time will tell if this system provides an incentive to place comments on the blog. ||  ||  || The children wrote poems about clouds. The text organisation of working within this genre is at their finger tips and everyone wrote a poem with some writing two and three.
 * Tuesday

The bloggers wall of fame has two names on it - Ashane and Aart - the two children who were keen to comment on the blog last term. They were proud to have their names on the wall and I'm hoping this might inspire others to comment on the blog at home. ||  ||   ||
 * Wednesday

I introduced the children to writing a narrative. I firmly believe that writing in this genre comes easily to young children as they often arrive in our classrooms having displayed vivid imaginations as preschoolers.

I introduced the oral planner and after brainstorming the language related to the sequenced pictures the children videoed each other. Interestingly as they went off to plan their work I had to smile when some of the children added visuals to the written planner that I had omitted namely the main character and question mark under problem. Visuals really do seem to guide the children through the text organisation. Initial written planner ||  || Oral planner for narrative

Narrative planner - as altered || As the children watched the videos of their peers oral planning session I took heart in how engaged they were as they watched these videos - how it enables you as a teacher to stop and highlight the important text organisation they have captured orally and reinforce how important it is to include these in their written work.
 * Thursday

They went off to write and when the bell rang for morning tea there was a loud 'oh' as they were obviously not impressed with the interruption. I told them to leave their books out and we would carry on after morning tea - which we did.

During reading we unpicked our shared book in terms of its text organisation. I talked to our buddy class teacher today and have enlisted her classes help in getting us underway with writing comments on our blog. Tomorrow they will visit bringing along their class laptops and will assist us in writing comments. ||  ||



I || The class was humming this morning as our buddy class came to help us record comments on our blog. The interactions were delightful as the room 10 children supported my class reminding them how to record a comment as well as making suggestions as to the type of comment they could make. By the end of the session there were 24 comments in my in box to be moderated - so I am pleased to report that our bloggers wall of fame is under way.
 * Friday



Time got away on us today and we ended up with a short recording session. I was surprised on how quickly we got through the flip video recording. This was due in part to the system working like clock work. I'd call a child over and their literacy buddy would appear automatically ready to video their buddy. The children had read their piece of writing every day to two people, one of whom had to be their literacy buddy so both parties were familiar with the piece of writing which assisted in the recording process.

Rebekah who was away all of last term took a keen interest in the recording session - watching, asking questions and collecting the next piece of work. She was delighted when Zac asked her to video him as his literacy buddy was away. As she completed the task her face just beamed informing me that next week she will have a piece of writing ready to be published. ||  ||

Once they had written a comment on the blog the children showed their buddy their draft books. || • Making explicit the text organisation inherent in shared books provides important links to the writing the children are undertaking in the classroom. • Creating a system for encouraging commenting was the easy bit, sustaining the initial momentum will require my on going attention. • Our buddy class are so supportive and interested in what we are doing. • I need to ensure that I don't comprise the time that is put aside each week for recording. ||
 * As the week draws to a close – I ponder and acknowledge the following
 * Look who is looking at our blog -

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