SOLSC #8: Small Moments

Here I am.  Day 8.  Ralph Fletcher in What a Writer Needs says, "I seek a subject to write about with two distinguishing characteristics:  it must interest me and it must be something I think I can write well about."  It's the second part that always gets me.

Typically it's the little things that make my day; a cup of coffee in the morning, coming home to find dinner already ready, or finding a piece of chocolate in my cupboard when I thought it was all gone.  It was one of those little moments that caught me today, making me pause and smile.

My class began blogging back in September when writing a sentence was still a challenge.  Since then we've written about a variety of topics.  We introduced ourselves to our student teacher on our blog.  Each student shared a story about our walk-a-thon.  On our blogs we have written about things that are important to us.  I have a few kids who regularly blog beyond the classroom sharing their hobbies, family events, and other personal interest stories.  

In all of these months I've been waiting for someone to discover the ability to take a picture and post it on the blog.  I waited and waited and waited, but nobody even seemed to notice.  Finally today I decided we needed to learn how to put a picture on the blog.  As a community we talked about the reasons bloggers might use a camera to take a picture for a post.  I took them to my other blog, Reflect and Refine:  Building a Learning Community, and showed them a post I had written about a new book just being released by one of their favorite authors.  They loved hearing that Kevin Henkes had a new book coming out.  They, of course, were beside themselves to hear it was a chapter book.  

Students seemed eager to share books with their friends and were quickly ready to begin.  Each chose a favorite book, took a picture for the post, and then wrote about the book choice.  The kids enjoyed the lesson and enthusiastically wrote about favorites.  The class was humming with students working to get pictures taken and placed on their blogs.  It wasn't long until everyone had completed the post.   

After the computers had been packed away and the children had gone home for the evening, I sat down at my computer to approve posts.  School had been out for less than 30 minutes when I started reading and approving.  It wasn't long until I pulled up a post that surprised me.  I clicked this post and was soon staring at a picture of a dog.  What?  I asked myself in confusion.  Then it hit me.  One of my students had gone home after school and posted about her dog.  Incredibly she had to have posted within 20 minutes of the end of the school day.  

I'm continually amazed by my first graders.  I love their enthusiasm for learning and their genuine love of learning.  I can't wait to talk to my blogger and share in her excitement.  This little post just made my day.   Sometimes it's the little things that matter most.