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Squirrel Nutkin is back

Yes, the school holiday is almost over in New Zealand and Squirrel Nutkin is back from his holiday with Tania and using his blog to tell everyone all about it including the children of Manaia Kindergarten New Zealand where he's based and their friends in Spring Trails Kindergarten in Illinois who actually sent him to New Zealand in the first place. (The children in America were talking about squirrels but there are no squirrels in New Zealand.)
The idea of having a toy, often a teddy bear, which goes home with members of the class and reports back on his adventures via the child’s writing and photographs, is not of course new. The digital equivalent though has a wider audience, the world and your granny, a very real audience worth doing your best for

Looking at the two blogs they are wonderful examples of early learning environments, all about the children, bright and colourful, with sound, pictures and video, lots of interaction and activity designed to celebrate their achievements with an audience beyond the building.

Read through and look at the range of free web 2.0 features used to engage the audience, Spring Trails makes use of Odiogo for those who would like to hear the pages rather than read them. Cathy has also used the blog to help parents at home by making a video about telling the time.

Let me know if you’re a UK foundations stage setting and are making similar use of blogs.

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