blogging for children

Last Saturday, I spent the morning talking to children aged 8-12 about blogging for a writing workshop.

I know about blogging. I have too many of them. However, I had to figure out what to tell a bunch of kids about it. First thing, I told them to make sure to ask their parents’ permission about everything they want to put online.

Once I was done with that, my research turned up a number of blogs that are actually run by kids. I was fascinated. I didn’t realize so many children were out there writing blogs.

The best part about the blogs was that they were actually family affairs. Kids would write the posts, show them to their parents, who edit them, and together they post the blogs. They talk about the blog posts, and it certainly helps children learn how to write well.

I thought this was a great experience and hope that some of the kids that I spoke to will decide to create a blog. One of the points I tried to drive home was that a blog could be anything they wanted it to be from texts to pictures and videos to drawings.

Some of the children had interesting ideas for blogs. Two of them paired up and wanted to create a Minecraft blog, a couple of others wanted to make fashion blogs, and one boy was into kite fighting. One 10-year-old wanted to blog about being a vegan and gluten-free at her age – imagine having to deal with birthday parties at that age dealing with dietary issues?

A funny moment during the session was at the end when I asked if any of the kids had any questions, my niece (who was in one of the classes) said “Can you ask my dad if I could have a blog?”

So, I spoke to my brother and he said he would think about it. But I hope he checks out some of the other blogs run by children out there to see that it’s not a big, scary world out there.

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