Aug. 3, 2006
Blogging as a School Tool
If your child hasn't joined in with the blogging world yet - consider helping them set up a blog (here at HSB) to use in conjunction with your homeschooling. A blog can have excellent real world application for our kids ~ especially with writing and reporting skills.
Our oldest son loves baseball and has for many years. He is simply passionate about the sport. He plays it, watches it, follows it, wants to go to Cooperstown and has given serious consideration to doing "something" baseball related as a career - either before or after he becomes a marine biologist.
When he was ten, he received the current year baseball almanac. He read it; he memorized it; he re-wrote his own version of it! This summer, he has been consumed with knowing all the player stats and watches all the sports highlights at 7 a.m. every morning to know who's playing, who's winning, who's leading...................and then he wants to relay it all to ME - usually as I'm pouring my first cup of coffee and my eyes are still shut.......
A Mother's Brainstorm: since he already enjoys blogging, I suggested he take his passion for this game and all that goes with it and begin his own sports report column at his blog. Bingo - we have a winner. He loves it! He's already written two and I hope you'll check out his own highlights and reports HERE.
Other suggestions for using blogging as a school tool: it makes for a great display of school work, science projects, photography, artwork, as well as field trips from their point of view. Nancy Baetz has just finished up sharing all about their local fair entries and experiences and shares the projects and artwork that her kids have made! Check them out HERE.
Since we live in a rural area, we are not as easily able to participate in big academic fairs where our sons' work might be displayed very often. A blog might be something to consider allowing your kids to display some of their hard work. Our youngest son enjoys photography and has posted some on his blog. He has more coming soon - he is currently entrenched in a writing project (that he decided all on his own....) that continues to lengthen with each chapter he writes. He plans to begin posting the chapters of his "book" along with his own illustrations in the weeks ahead. Our oldest son posted his spring science research project HERE.
A WORD ABOUT BLOGGING/INTERNET SAFETY: The internet represents the entire world. Therefore, without proper attention, guidance, supervision and precautions - our children are at risk with contact by some unwanted world-wide visitors. I am very pleased with the experience we've had with our sons blogging here at HSB. When setting up a blog for your kids - there are features here that allow parents to limit who can access your child's blog as well as control the email and comments features. If you choose, you can limit comments to only HSB members. I have email features set to mine so all comments posted to their blogs - hit my email box first. When "friends" want to be added - I see who they are first. I'm proud to be a helicopter parent by choice - and when it comes to internet safety - there is no such thing as being too cautious.
If your children are young elementary ages - consider an all-inclusive family blog where each member has input and posts - even if the child dictates to Mom or Dad for typing purposes. When proper precautions are taken, blogging can be an effective and fun school tool as an added element to your homeschooling.
Aug. 4, 2006 - Untitled Comment
Posted by gmisch
Thank you for the ideas! My oldest (just turned 11) would probably love to do this. He loves everything to do with computers, and loves to write. It would also help with his typing skills.
I think I may approach dh with this idea, and then present it to my son.
Thanks again!
