SOLSC Classroom Challenge

Classroom SOLSC Week 1- Ready, Set….

Kathleen Neagle Sokolowski

Welcome to the April 2022 Classroom Slice of Life Story Challenge! 

If you haven’t signed up yet, please share your class’ blog information on the Padlet.

Click here for more information on what the Classroom Slice of Life Challenge is all about!

The April Classroom SOLSC begins on Friday, April 1 and runs through Saturday, April 30th. Many of us will be on spring break later this month. State testing may be happening in your school during April as well (it is in mine!) The spirit of the Classroom SOLSC is to encourage daily free choice writing within a community of writers, but make this work for you and your writers in a flexible way.

Last week, I posted on TWT a checklist for getting ready for the April Classroom SOLSC. I included the badges I use in my classroom and some other resources to get your class ready. Check it out if you haven’t yet!

Be Inspired! 

While our challenge emphasizes telling stories about a “slice of life”, students may find inspiration from different writing prompts. In the spring of 2020, Amy Ludwig Vanderwater created a series of videos to help students write in their notebook. Many of these ideas and prompts could be inspiration for blogging as well! Check out the playlist of videos here.

Let’s Have a Conversation! 

How are you launching the April Classroom SOLSC? How did you get your students excited for this month of blogging? How has your own March SOLSC influenced and inspired how you will approach this challenge with your students? Please share your ideas, insights and questions in the comments so we can have a conversation.

Can’t wait to read the stories of the many students around the world who will be taking part in the April Classroom SOLSC! Thanks for being a teacher who writes and makes time for your students to write their stories.

Published by Kathleen Neagle Sokolowski

12 thoughts on “Classroom SOLSC Week 1- Ready, Set….”

  2. We are doing this as an entire middle school. Today is the first information session and is completely student led. A grade 6 student asked me about SOLC that I was participating in and it just went from there. I’m excited to see how many writers show up and how they work together as a community to motivate and inspire each other.

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  3. I introduced this idea to my students before spring break. This week we will be preparing and curating ideas and strategies for what to write. The way we are doing it, that I got approved by Admin/Tech (because I teach 5th grade who aren’t 13 and can’t have their own blog) is I have a Google Site for them. I made a running Google Doc for each of the students that will serve as their “blog” and I linked it to their own page on the website that is owned by me. Therefore, people can navigate to my class website and then sift through the students and read their “blogs”. I’m hopeful it will work well! 🙂

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  4. I started last week giving my students a few minutes at the end of the day to write a slice of life in their writer’s notebook, and then I read one (or more than one, depending on time) and we talk about what comment we could write that would be complimentary and specific. I’m still struggling to figure out what platform to use–I miss kidblog!–but I’ll figure it out in the next few days.

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  5. Unfortunately we’re starting April with Spring Break and then 2 days of state testing (not sure who decided that was a good idea)… but we’ll jump in near the end of the first week! Before we get going, I plan to have students set goals about what strategies they want to try to get better at, brainstorm some writing ideas, and explore mentor slices written by my former students and me! I also show them some little posters made by past students to celebrate how many posts they wrote, which is always inspiring!

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  6. I started reading my slices to my class last week. We made a list of my topics and then started making our own lists. Then we started writing to build our stamina, which is already pretty good, but this is “Slice of Life stamina”. We started with writing for only three minutes. The next day it was four minutes, etc. They are doing fantastic in coming up with ideas and begging for more time each day. I’m pretty sure only a small handful will meet the challenge because we have our Easter break during April, but they are showing excitement during our stamina writing so that makes ME excited.

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  7. How are you launching the April Classroom SOLSC? How did you get your students excited for this month of blogging?
    Last month, when my colleagues and I joined the Slice of Life Challenge, we requested grade 8 IT Instructor to train the students on how to create a blog. We started the year with students learning the techniques of KEEPING A NOTEBOOK Series by Amy Ludwig. This was then followed by 100 Days of Notebooking (http://www.michellehaseltine.com/100-days-of-notebooking-blog) after winter break. Some ideas worked, some didn’t, but the students were surely in the routine of writing, thus the transition and the challenge set its course smooth and easy.

    How has your own March SOLSC influenced and inspired how you will approach this challenge with your students?
    It was actually quite personalized and relatable when students watched eight teachers from their school slicing. Teachers who are currently teaching them or had taught them in earlier years. Not only that, seeing other known and unknown visitors commenting on my blog made them less anxious about writing for a global audience.

    Looking forward to the challenge. Let’s see how many hang in there till the end.

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  8. I don’t have a classroom! From Stacey’s response – can I have just one student join? I’m going to try to convince a gifted 6th grade girl, who I work with to join. She loves to write!

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  9. I’m trying to get Isabelle to join in. She wrote two amazing slices in her writer’s notebook on Thursday and Friday. However, she’s digging in her heels on blogging. ARGH! I know the whole point is to get kids writing daily about pieces of their lives, but I would LOVE IT if she’d blog so she can connect with others. I don’t want to assign it to her since that would defeat the purpose. I’ve got a few more days to gently push…

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  10. We are introducing it to all fifth graders this week- they will all do day one and then it will be optional. They will have time at the end of the day to slice if they choose to. Hoping a lot go for it!

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