Journal Beginnings 2026

      We have a goal this year to have our students write (or do something creative) in their journals every single day.  Now, keep in mind that I respect my students' privacy and won't share their writing here.  But, thus far this year they have written about what they learned during church sermons, what they appreciated about the Waldensians (yay Anabaptist history!), strange happenings during storms, getting locked out of their houses, and what they are looking forward to this year, among other things.  However, once a week we have a creative art journaling day, and I can share their artistic endeavors.  Here are some of my favorites.  

     We always decorate our journal covers during some of the first art classes of the year.  We evidently have some music lovers in this group.  

Perforations!  We passed around hole punchers and embroidery thread.  

Assignment: fold a page anyway you'd like to.  One had messages I could read depending on how I folded it, and another was folded and cut into neat symmetrical designs.   

Assignment:  trace your foot and decorate it.  

 

Add a Little Confetti to Your Journal Cover

     Our first art project of the year is usually decorating the covers of our journals.  We write in these almost every school day of the year, and it's just nice to have the covers personalized.  This year the students were encouraged to create a type of collage, and the results are as varied as my wonderful students' personalities.  

Related Posts:

Yummy Journal Covers 

Help!  My Students Hate Writing 

L'art Decrire or Hunting?  

Journal Writing 101 

 

Letters From My Students Five Years Later

Just about this time every May, I go down to my basement and take out a box or large envelope which has "Mail in 2022" (or whatever year it happens to be) written on it.  Then, I pull out the letters which I had my students write to themselves five years ago.  I give them a few ideas (listed below), a piece of paper and an envelope which they address to themselves, and give them several minutes to write.  I tell them that in five years, I will mail the letters to them.  And I do.  

I give them the option of sealing them so that I won't read them, or of leaving them unsealed if they don't mind my reading them.  I also tell them that they can put whatever souvenirs they want to from their desks or lockers in the letter.  Some of them go a little overboard, but I don't mind.  

I also include a letter from myself telling them what I'm up to, and I include my contact information.  Very often I will hear back from several of them, and that makes my day.  

And here they are my students' letters from 2017, five years later, waiting to go to the post office.  

I write these on the board and let the students answer them in their letters.  

Who are you sitting by?
What was the most exciting event this year?
Who are your closest friends?

What is something that happened this year that is really funny?
What is something that happened that is sad? 

What are your best memories from this year? 

What do you think you'll be doing when you get this letter in 5 years? 

What are you looking forward to next year? 

Related Post: 

Dear Self, I'll See You in Five Years 

This is a writing assignment from Journal Writing 101.  

No No Land

 

     This is just a silly little thing, but maybe it's not really.  I learned early in my school career (around 3rd grade) that the margins on either side of a piece of paper are not to be written in.  I've been very surprised to find out how many of my students, and how many adults never learned this when they were in school.  Or maybe they just don't do it?  

     So, this week I told my students that the one-inch spaces on the left and right sides of our journals were the margins and that we were not to write there.  I told them, "This is No No Land."  Usually we just take a red pencil and make the red line that is already there (for exactly this purpose) darker.  Often I will have my students draw squiggly lines down the sides just because it is fun and helps us to remember not to write there, but this week, when I called it "No No Land," my students thought it was funny, and funny is  a good thing because it helps us all to remember stuff way better and longer than we normally would.  So, we also wrote "No No Land" on our papers, just to help us remember.  

Related Post:  Journal Writing 101 

Really Funny Speech Bubble Journal Assignment

We were working on another magazine journal assignment.  Each student found a magazine on his desk when he entered the room.  They knew to begin looking for an interesting picture.  Instead of the normal choices, this time I thought I'd spice it up a bit. I told them that they could write an advertisement, a poem, or a speech bubble.  These were my favorites.
 

P.S. My students know their verb tenses.  It was written this way on purpose to give it a special effect.  

Three Minute Magazine Journal Assignment

These were written by junior high students, but the same concept works for grades three through twelfth.     

Assignment:  In the next three minutes, tear a picture out of the magazine on your desk.  (I have a stack of edited magazines, and while the students are finding a picture, I put a piece of tape on the edge of each desk.)  Tape it to the journal page, and then write about your picture.  These can be any of the following:

* a poem (at least four lines)

* a description (use vocabulary words)

* a newspaper article 

Pretty flowers
Misty showers
Snow so white
On that height

Fields of glory
Tell the story
Of the Alpine
Heights on high.

The little critter short and fat,
Runs around like a little rat.
He stole my half-eaten fruit,
So I chased him and saw that he was too cute! 

There was a bird
He asked what he heard;
Then he stepped down the stair,
And lost all his hair.

The wreath's beautiful pink roses are surrounded by vivid green leaves.  Dainty daisies are entwined by vines.  This wreath is a beautiful display of nature. 

Once there was a little dog,
His fur all silk and smooth,
This doggie is my little friend,
Despite his stinky poo.

The Elephant

Whoa, what is that booming sound?
It is an elephant, shaking the ground.
That beauty of nature and God's Creation,
Has walked up to our missionary station.

What a glory she is, and always will be,
Hey, I think that she likes me!


The Goat News


   One day as Mr. Goat and his two children, Babbi and Bambi, were going on a trip to the mountains, Bambi nibbled some flowers, while Bobby, on the other hand, started to chase his sister.  They ran and ran until their father asked them to come back.  They went home and then took a long snooze. 

Assignment: Tear Your Journal

This was another Creative Art Journaling assignment.  Just about every Friday, I try to give my students something artistic to create in their journals instead of writing.  Besides being another avenue to be expressive, it is something they look forward to, and I do believe that the process of writing on most days and doing something a little different on Fridays does help the students to think a little "outside the box," and that will help them become better writers.  For what it's worth, almost half of these were drawn by guys.  

This student wrote the first part of her Bible memory verse on the torn edge.