Weekly Wrap Up: Week 24

Despite some sniffles we had a great week! We did a lot of hands on in terms of lap books with the Astronomy Unit Study we are doing. The lap books for science are coming along quite nicely. I'll post them when we're finished up with them (or maybe I'll post the progression, if I have some time!). I find the afternoons are nice and relaxed when we lapbook/notebook; throw a little sketching in there for history and we have a lovely afternoon!

This week I taught the kiddos some journaling skills. A good friend of mine posted some journaling ideas on Pinterest. As I browsed through them I started to think about how my Dad had shown me one of my cousin's journals a few months ago. The journal was from the 1930's. I read through the entire notebook while I was up there. She talked about life on the farm, the weather, shopping, who was sick, chores they did etc. I began to think about how keeping a journal is a skill I would really like my children to learn and utilize in their lives. I determined to get them started on one this week. When I introduced what we were going to do I talked to them about my cousin's journal and all the information it contained. It was something I quite enjoyed reading because my Grandma's name came up often and I had never met her, her having died when my Dad was 10yrs old. The kids were fascinated as we talked. I explained that a journal is good for remembering events, writing down your thoughts and feelings, impressions etc. I also talked about how handwriting journals show our unique personalities, including our very own hand writing. I felt it was significant to talk to them about this, with the advance of computer journals, it is an art that I think is important not to loose. Besides, it's neat to keep them! My step Grandma wrote in journals and on papers and they were so fascinating as a Grandchild to read through! Imagine one of great grandchildren finding one and reading it. :) Once I got their 'buy in' we started in on them. There were some amazing examples on pinterest of different ways to journal. Here's the link: http://pinterest.com/cinthia/journalling/ They took it all in and I watched as they choose the ideas they liked. They added to them, or took away from them each with their own flare and personality manifesting itself. It ended up being a form of artistic expression combined with the written word. I did one along side of them as well, it was lots of fun! They used pencils, pencil crayons, bubbles, boxes, bubble letters, stamps, stickers, stencils, and lots of colours to communicate their thoughts and feelings. We just used plain notebooks for the journals; like the ones you would find in a dollar store. From this point on I will have them do it a few times a week, not every day (well unless they want to do it every day!). It really was the highlight of our week!

For pictures of our journals see my Wordless Wednesday Post.

*This Post is linked back to Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers Weekly Wrap Up