This month's Blogging Basics from HSB E-Newsletter is about mailing lists. (Once it's sent out, I'll link you to the archive.) If you choose to self mail blog updates to your subscribers, it doesn't have to be boring! You can get creative, just like people do with their answering machine messages.   

Blog Tip Challenge of the Month

Once a week I tell my children to write about one word or topic. I've been pretty amazed at what they come up with! With three writers you get three totally different, fascinating accounts about the pickle. I don't allow them to write, "I ate a sweet pickle in my sandwich. It was good but I didn't like the tail." They have to write a story, do some research, or share an event. They have to make it worth their time to write and worth my time to read.   

Blog Tip Challenge of the Month

In the September Blogging Basics I offer a few ways your student can use a blog for school. (As soon as it comes out and is archived I'll link you directly to it, in case you need it.) You can see a sample of what I am coining Blogbooking HERE. It's a cross between lapbooking and notebooking, only on a blog.

Blog Tip Challenge of the Month

Have a blog ready? Why not show us how you and your student display their schoolwork? It's always fun to glean ideas from other bloggers and helps us visual learners to see how it was done!

Once you have your entry posted share it with us so we can see your work! Just leave a comment here with a link to your blog post.

Tia Linschied
Senior Editor of HSB

Blog Tip Challenge of the Month

It's important to write clearly if you want to get your point across. It's important even if you have no point! Sometimes though I can get caught up in trying to make myself so clear so that nobody will ask me just what I meant by that statement. I don't like being misunderstood. However, writing that clearly can lead to long and boring blog posts. Not to mention fewer comments. Still, you want to be clear, you want your readers to know what it is you are talking about.    

Blog Tip Challenge of the Month

Have you ever noticed the word Source in your Add Entry tool bar? Perhaps you clicked it and couldn't figure out what it did. Source is where you can type up your post using HTML. Some people prefer this, but it's also a good view to be in when you are adding HTML to your blog post, such as JavaScript for a counter. If you can't get your HTML codes to work in the usual view then try doing it in Source.    

Blog Tip Challenge of the Month

One way a blogger gets others to come to their blog is to start a weekly or monthly blog post meme (pronounced like theme). The blogger challenges their readers to post on a certain subject on their own blogs and then asks those bloggers to sign up by either leaving a comment or using the Mr. Linky at the bottom of the original post. This way other readers and bloggers can read all the posts that mention the same topic. For instance, Thursday Thirteen, Wordless Wednesday, and Works for me Wednesday. The list could go on and on and on!  If you see a meme on a blog you'll know it because it will direct you back to the original post. So start your own meme!

Blog Tip Challenge of the Month

While blogging is a fun way to share with your family and friends not everyone on the internet needs to know everything about your life.  It's a good idea to go over your blog posts and check to see what you have already blogged about. 

You or  a friend or family member can go over them and see if there is anything on your blog you don't want people to know about.  Sometimes we inadvertently put something simple, like that picture of your house that shows the street sign. 

Let us know on here by leaving a comment if you found some things that you really didn't want everyone on the World Wide Web to know about. You don't have to describe what you found, just tell us if you were surprised or if you've made any changes to make your blog safer.

Tia Linschied
Senior Editor of HSB

This month click on the Random Blogger button on the HSB Home page or at the top of each blog.  Try to leave a comment on every blog you come across even the blogs that appear to be abandoned. 

How many comments can you leave?  10?  20?  50?  Who can leave the most comments?  Come back here and let us know!

Tia Linschied
Senior Editor of HSB 

As you should have read in the brand new Blogging Basics from HSB e-newsletter, that every last blogger here at HSB received, then you will know that this is the Blog Tip Challenge of the Month. 

Just in case you did not come here from the newsletter I'll go over the challenge again.  Any blogger is welcome to join us. 

Write a blog entry about a pencil.  Your choice, you can write anything you want about it: facts, uses, dangers, a silly story, whatever you want and any way you want.  Once you are done add your username to Mr. Linky so that all of us can read what you came up with. 

I look forward to reading your posts!

If you did NOT get your HSB newsletter let me know and we'll find out why. 

Tia Linschied
Senior Editor of HSB