Blogging - Blogging - Blogging

I love blogging so much that I am going to teach my kinders to blog!! We are fortunate enough to have 6 ipads per classroom and might even be getting more! There is a free app called Kid Blog. It is so easy to use and it it FREE!  The app is very user friendly. You sign up using your school email address and create a class name. You can have multiple classes for if you teach more then one class. After, signing up you create an account for each student in your class, giving them a user name ... I just use my students first name and a password.. I keep mine very simple and the same for each of my kiddos. This way they find it easy to remember and log in. Each child can have a little avatar for their profile. Kid blog gives some cute images for these or you can upload your own images for each child. I plan on adding kid clip art that looks similar to each of my student to make it more personal. I just haven't gotten around to it yet. Maybe I will do it next week in between conferences?

Now don't worry, Kid blog is different then the blogging we do. It is completely safe and private. You can only view these blogs if you are a member of the group. No one from the public has access to the children's blogging or the posts you as the teacher make. You can not Google search for them and no one can comment on them unless you invite them to join your classroom group.

You might be asking your self how would you use Kid Blog

 in your classroom. Well here is how...

1. It is a great way to introduce technology into your classroom. It allows you to teach your students up to date practices in technology. At the same time it gives my kinders a great way to practice typing and letter recognition.

2. I use Kid Blog during centers. My kids have to blog before doing an educational game. The best part is the teacher creates the posts. It allow me to assess my children in any topic I want and I am able to use it as an online portfolio that can show administration and parents how my student are progressing throughout the year. Our first post was for the children to type their first and last name. I taught them how to log in and out, the way to capitalize letter s on an iPad,  and how to type a finger space in between their words.

3. Each week I will have my kiddos type in the weeks sight word as a fun reinforcement. This can also be use for word families and other phonemic awareness patterns. 

4. Kid Blog allows you to leave open ended questions for your children to respond to. Next week one of my posts will be What are you thankful for? My kinders will need to use sight words and their sound map to create a sentence to write about something they are thankful for. As the school year goes on Kid Blog will be a great tool for Writers Workshop. It will be another way for student to publish a piece of the writing and share it with others.

5. Comments - Kid blog allows students to make their own posts as well and any one from the class can respond to it. It's a great way for student to communicate and learn how to respond to other peoples thoughts and ideas. Once, my kids are more comfortable with using the app we will link up with another Kindergarten classroom in district and be iPad pals!

As the teacher, you are the moderator, any comment posted by a student needs to be approved by you before it is published on the blog. You can also comment on your students posts. I was able to tell each child that they did a great job typing their name and remind them to use finger spaces or capital letter if they forgot! My kids are really excited to read my comments that I write to them over the weekend!

So what are you waiting for! Go create our own account and let me know how you use it. I am still new to it and would love more ideas for posts and having my kinders explore more with technology!

Here is what the app looks like. Click below to sign up!