Learning happens everywhere... teaching the skills of editing at home.

Well, yesterday I posted my instructional photo guide to the assembly of a line trimmer.

Today I was showing it to a friend and noticed a few errors in my text. (Oops!) I made it my mission to go home and edit my blog post.

I was about to do this when it suddenly hit me! This was a perfect opportunity to offer my seven year old daughter the chance to be involved in an authentic learning task.

So I approached her and requested her help with the correction of my blog post.  At first she seemed a little reluctant (maybe it sounded too much like school). I explained that I valued her opinion and would like her to read my post and edit it for me. I suggested that we do it together. She liked this idea.

We grabbed a sheet of paper to write down our editorial notes and corrections.

We went through each step together and read the post. We checked for spelling mistakes, formatting mistakes and semantic errors (Does it make sense?).  My daughter wrote down the changes we needed to make. As we progressed we shortened the process so that she did not have to write as much. We talked about how she could just write 8 instead of step 8 because they are her notes and she will be the only one using them. We discussed how she can use different shortcuts to save herself from writing everything out in full.

After we completed the editing process we then logged into the blog and I guided her through the process of making the necessary changes to correct the post. She then clicked publish and viewed the finished post.

I think that sometimes we forget that there are many opportunities for us to show our children that the skills they are learning at school also come in handy in the 'real' world. I am trying to take up more opportunities like this when I remember. :-)   Anyway that is it for today... until next time...