This collage of images taken with my iPhone and edited in Camera+, PicFix and PicFrame
At the beginning of the summer I took the boys to Target and let them pick out any notebook they wanted to journal their summer. My oldest chose a leather bound notebook, a real… traditional journal, and of course his little brother followed his lead choosing the same book in another color. They were super excited and my oldest even picked up a mini pocket version to take hiking and on other outdoor adventures. (It’s now full of math, pressed leaves and other goodies… although I hope no mushed bugs!)
I was thrilled! I really wanted it to start with the first day of summer and help them capture each day. My primary goal for the project was to keep my oldest from slipping in his writing skills over the summer and to boost my soon to be Kindergartener’s letter formation and spelling before the fall. But as a mom, I really wanted all those sweet little thoughts on paper too!
This collage is from a few weeks ago. My youngest, hat on backwards, hard at work. My oldest on the other hand created a tin can robot to do his journaling that day… {smirk} My little genius only wishes! Ha!
A few tips I’ve found helpful for our summer journaling adventure:
- Topic – let them choose their favorite part of the day to talk about.
- Visual – we often start with drawing a picture of what they’re going to talk about. It incorrporates a bit of art, plus it gets their creative juices flowing.
- Length cooresponds to age – for my oldest, I expect 3-4 sentences and descriptive words. For my youngest, one sentence is acceptable.
As always, I hope you’re inspired to craft, bake, JOURNAL, and create!
Oh, and if you’d rather photojournal your summer, you can read my post and follow our adventures on Instagram at TheCelebrationShoppe.
Happy Friday everyone!
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Love the idea of summer journaling. next on my list with the kiddos.
Love this idea, thank you for sharing! Even though in Arizona we only have 1 month left until school starts, I definitely want to get my girls started with journaling. Thanks for the inspiration!
Karie Johnson recently posted..Have Fun with it Friday: Get your Creative Juices Flowing: Teacher Appreciation gift!
Karie – I know! I can’t believe the summer is moving so fast. Glad you like the idea!