The next portion of this unit gives students the opportunity to respond to their reading of Mercy Watson to the Rescue and to share with classmates.
These activites have two parts: Journaling and Blogging.
Journaling
Each student will have the opportunity to take Mercy home for a visit with them! Prepare a special bag that is full of all of the items they will need.
This bag includes a stuffed Mercy Watson, a copy of the book, a small fire engine, a piece of toast with a great deal of butter (Mercy's favorite treat), a journal to write about their fun with Mery, and a digital camera to take photos of their fun!
Students take Mercy home for three days and they write a journal entry about their experiences along with take a few digital photos. The writing is fun, because the students write from Mercy's pont of view.
Prior to taking Mercy home, a contract goes home to the families to explain what is going to happen. Another great idea is for the teacher or media specialist to take Mercy home with them first and write a journal as an example.
Also, students will have a mini-lesson on how to take photos with the digital camera. All photos can stay on the camera and be brought back to school for downloading.
Example Journal
Here is an image of the journal Grace wrote when Mercy came to visit.
Grace's journal example with show up again with the Blog!
Blogging
After students return to school with mercy, they can have a chance to share their aqdventures with the class. One additional way that this sharing can occur is through the use of a blog.
Students can transcribe their writing from their journal to a blog entry. They can add their photos as well! The best part about the blog is that they can go in and make comments to one another about their postings. So can the teacher or media specialist!
The blog address can be sent home and students can access the blog and make comments from home as well. It is a good idea to have all comments and postings go through the teacher for approval before they are on the site, just in case some inappropriate comments come accross, or a stranger online stumbles onto the blog.
It is easy to set up a blog. Edublogs is a site where you can set up a blog for free for educational purposes. It is very simple and user-friendly.
Example Blog
Our blog is at
