Creative Journal for Children

In my on-going quest to help our kids not only be good writers, but enjoy writing creatively and expressively, I picked up The Creative Journal for Children, by Lucia Capacchione (and I got it really inexpensively! If I could remember how I did that I would share it with you, but I don't).

I have wanted my kids to be in the habit of journaling each day, but I dreaded what I thought would be the inevitable, "I don't know what to write!" This book solves that by giving suggestions for journaling that start simply with allowing the children to draw what they are thinking. Now, honestly, I thought this would be worse for Megan because while she enjoys writing, she is not a confident artist. I don't know what it is though - maybe the option of drawing and/or writing each day, but they both really enjoy it! When I said it was journal time today Ethan said, "What do we have to do for it?" in a tone that implied he was excited. They've needed very little prompting.

The author suggests parents and teachers to allow the journals to be private so as to encourage kids to be as open as possible. I told the kids they didn't have to show me their journals, but so far they have wanted to do so. I'm glad because it was fun to see that on the day Megan was supposed to write about how she was feeling she wrote, "My neck hurts. I don't really feel anything today. But I feel sort of sleepy." Not exactly mining the depths, but I am so excited that daily journaling could be something the kids do without complaining and even enjoy! (this is after only a few days though, so ask me again in a week what they think!)

The topics in the book are meant to help the kids be more self-aware and expressive, which is my goal in journaling (rather than the actual act of writing - they do enough of that in other school work). If you're looking for something like that too, you might want to check this out!