Making Chocolate Box Comments

It seems almost every day I find another reason to be delighted with our blogs. Today, my delight is in easy connections made between students who are 9000 miles apart and have only met via blogs.

Our student guests from the USA and from other classes in our school have left another spate of comments and all of us at this end are savoring them. Popping open each comment box is much like biting into a bon bon from a box of mixed chocolate; we aren't sure what's going to be in there, but chances are we'll like it. (Thank you, Forrest Gump.)

Some of what we are liking includes...

• Kids finding common ground discussing topics such as what to do during a power outage, the experience of learning to ride a bike, or the problem of siblings who are bullies.
• A fifth grader in the USA who played the part of Prospero last year in his class production of The Tempest connecting with the two student bloggers who are sharing the part in their class production this spring.
  
• Other students with 6-trait writing experience making comments about the bloggers' word choice or lead sentences.
  

What strikes me about this list, is how often the word or idea of experiences is mentioned. I can't think of another place in our curriculum where student's ideas and experiences are so central to the action. That realization is both exciting and worrying.