Bump it Up!

As a class we have been working on giving effective feedback in the comments we write on the Blogs. I took sample comments from their KidBlogs and together we created a Bump It Up Wall. The bump it up comments will serve as a guide for students to work towards adding more detail in their comments and giving students something to reply back to. This will help to encourage deeper conversations on our Blogs! We have been working on bumping up our writing in a variety of ways in class and on our Blogs. Students are reading each other's written reading responses and offering comments to help improve on their writing. 
Last week we began an exciting global writing challenge called The Five Sentence Challenge. Each week there is a writing prompt and students from around the world are welcome to create a story in 5 sentences. The focus this week was "Going shopping on a rainy day".

The exciting part of this writing challenge is that all students around the world who are participating in this project can read and comment on OUR stories!  
This week we commented on a set of Blogs written by students in a Grade 2 class that live close to us in Kanata. We collaborated with them before during the Global Read Aloud Project in the fall. Students put into practice the bump up style comments that we worked on. They also came up with their own set of Commenting Rules. They decided on what rules our comments should follow and followed them when commenting on the Five Sentence challenge stories they wrote as well as the comments on Mrs. Mason's Grade 2 blogs. Ask your child how they can bump up their comments on our class Kidblog. Also, please feel free to have your child comment on blogs for homework at any time. This will help to encourage meaningful conversations and feedback which will improve our writing. 

Homework April 20-24: Commenting on Narratives

This week for homework students are strongly encouraged to read and comment on their friend's narrative stories that we wrote last week. We worked really hard on following the Narrative Must Have list and to create an interesting narrative story. The online comments we receive on our blogs allow the students to see what their classmates think. This exposes them to a wider audience with a wide range of thoughts, opinions and questions. The goal of the homework this week is to Bump Up our dialogue on the comments, and to ask questions to expand our thinking. Parents are more than welcome to leave positive comments as well!!

For Homework this week:

1. Log into your KidBlog account
2. View the Narrative stories of at least 4 friends.
3. Read and give a LEVEL 4 comment to your friend.
4. Make sure to keep checking back to see if they replied to your question!

If you would like to comment on more narrative stories, please continue to post a comment on the Five Sentence Challenge Website. Our friends at St. Anne School in Kanata have written wonderful stories that you can comment on here: http://fivesc.net/2015/04/09/prompt-13-2/#more-1719