April 2020 Classroom SOLSC: Getting Started!

Two Writing Teachers welcomes everyone to the April 2020 Classroom SOLSC! Officially, we begin on Wednesday, April 1st and will end on Thursday, April 30th.

If your students are blogging, please be sure to sign up on our Padlet so participants can comment on the student blogs. This year, I added a column for students who are participating and being sponsored by a family member. (This would be if the student’s class was not signed up, but a family member wanted the child to participate, in light of many schools operating under remote learning conditions right now.) Please use the Padlet to support other classes that are blogging during the Classroom SOLSC. Much like we ask our educator bloggers to comment on three slices each day in the March SOLSC, we hope that our Classroom SOLSC educators will support students bloggers from other classes. We also invite our Slice of Life community to read and comment on student blog posts during April.

One participant on the Padlet asked about how to organize a community blog to participate. Please email me at mrs.sokolowski (at) gmail.com if you have questions about a platform to use to help students link up their individual posts.

If your students are taking on the Classroom SOLSC and not blogging, please help establish routines and check-ins with them. Many of us are using Google Classroom during this time of remote learning, and Google Docs is a good way for students to write digitally and share with their teacher and classmates. Notebooks also work! If your students are writing in notebooks, perhaps they can send you a picture of their writing once or twice a week for feedback and encouragement.

Beth Moore shared a post to help families who want to support their child(ren) in the Classroom SOLSC. If you are sponsoring your child in the challenge this year, please check out her post for some great ideas and suggestions.

Writing Tips

I created these videos to support the learning of my students and thought they might be helpful as we embark on this challenge. Students will need to find ideas for each day of writing! Please feel free to share these videos with your community if they help.

Be Inspired!

Amy Ludwig Vanderwater is an author and educator who is incredibly generous in what she shares. Amy has created a YouTube channel where she is sharing videos for students to inspire their writing work, especially in notebooks. Please check out her YouTube channel here and her main website here.

Let’s Have a Conversation!

In the comments, please let us know what would be helpful to you and your students as we take on the April 2020 Classroom SOLSC. We know these are challenging times and we want to help this experienced be positive and meaningful for all who participate. If you have a great resource or idea, please share it in the comments! We want to work together to come up with the best ideas for helping students share their stories and grow as writers. Thank you for being here! We will see you on April 1st! (No fooling.)