A nice thing to do for a child is to give them a special journal to write in at the beginning of each year and then keep each one. It’s a lovely way to help them learn valuable skills and the entire collection can be handed to them as a special gift when they reach 18 or 21 years old.
Provide them with a nicely bound book that has blank pages with faint lines. You can rule off larger lines for them while they are very young. Encourage them to write something inside each day or at least each week. They could start with writing the day, date and time at the top of the page and then anything that comes into their mind underneath. It might be something they have done or seen or the way they feel. It doesn’t matter if they fill the page or only write a few lines. They could then illustrate it with a drawing underneath or on the opposite page. It can be colour or black and white. If they misspell anything, avoid correcting it. Allow them to correct it themselves but only if it’s something they want to do. You don’t need to wait until they are school age to start; their first one may only have two or three words and a picture on each page. It will still be a valuable learning experience for them and a beautiful item to keep.
Your child’s journal is an educational exercise that will teach them naturally about the days of the week, months of the year and time. It will help develop their reading and writing skills, their observation and drawing skills and later it will become part of a beautiful collection you can hand to them as a gift when they are adults. It’s lovely then for them to be able to look back through their journals and read their childhood thoughts, to remember the things they experienced and to see how their skills developed throughout their growing years.
Wendy Morriss