What Is Kidipedia?

Kidipedia is a blog that our family created to see just what and how much the kids know about any and everything. I'm sure it goes without saying but the idea is a spin off of our loved and cherished go-to encyclopedia site: Wikipedia. The way it works is we pick a subject and through prompts and encouragement the kids brainstorm everything that they know about the subject while I type it up. This really gets their little brains a ticking.

Doing this allows me to see what and how much my kids know about things and then it guides me in the direction of what they need to learn. There is no right or wrong way of doing it. It is fun and educational. While we are brainstorming we often come up with more questions about it. Then we get to search the internet to find answers to our questions. It becomes a quest for information.

The goal is to get the kids thinking about topics, assess what they know, teach them more, have fun, and learn all at the same time. By putting it into blog form we get to go back and read over what we have done, this makes the facts that we learn embed further into our minds. We also get to add to our posts if we find more information.

My favorite part of this exercise is the blogging part. I love the idea of educating my kids on navigating the internet safely, making an online presence and using the internet as a creative outlet. By doing this every day we build responsibility through repetition. I am hoping that this will help any stage fright in the future the kids may have around writing. There is also much potential in lighting the blogging fire beneath their little bums, once they can write/type by themselves the gathering of information process will be a second nature.

So in a nutshell:

1. Pick a subject: example "Roses"
2. Guide the children through a brainstorming session discussing everything they know about roses.
3. Try your best to keep up while they are in the process of spewing all the info they know about roses and type it up.
4. It helps to review out loud what they have added throughout the process. This triggers more ideas. 
5. Encourage them to dig deeper by prompting ideas like: where do we find____, what can we make with____, can you draw a picture of___? 
6. Make it a goal to come up with 3 questions we don't know the answers to about the subject and explore the internet for answers. This is a good opportunity to show the children reputable kid friendly sites, teach them about the different media formats on the web (videos, images, text based information) and teach them safe internet etiquette. 
7. You can add whatever you want to the learning process, customize it t o what your child would most enjoy. If she/he is an artist have them draw a picture of the subject and upload it to the weblog. Kids love doing stuff together so (even if you don't see yourself as an artist) draw a picture of the subject as well and post it with your child's art. 
8.  After it's done share your blog post to your social media outlet and let everyone that adores your children gobble up the goodness. 
9. Reward your child for completing the project. 
10. Repeat the next day. As I said above I like to provide repetition through committing to a task everyday. This will teach responsibility and follow through. 

If you'r child would like to collaborate on our blog we would love to have them be a part of it. The more the merrier. We could even set it up where we lay out a weeks worth of topics (with the kids help of course) in advance. Let me know what you think and please comment on our blog and follow. Our blogging goal as a family is community.