Sitting down with your children to write is a great way to spend quality time with them, but it can also be a way to create a wonderful keepsake you can all enjoy for many years. My kids are now 19 and 21, but when my daughter was three and my son was five, I started taking the time to journal with them.
We would all sit at the kitchen table. I gave them each a piece of paper that was blank on top and had lines on the bottom. We talked about the fun things we did that day or the day before or what they were looking forward to about today. They then drew a picture. I would have them tell me about the picture as I wrote what they said, modeling writing for them. The paper would go into a page protector and then into a 3-ring-binder. I even started adding other important things into the binder: an award, a program from a play or even a headline from the newspaper.
As they got older, they started doing the writing themselves. It first started as scribbles, progressed to random letters, then to words without the vowels and finally complete words. Early on, their sentences were very simple with little or no punctuation. They eventually progressed to writing out complete and complex thoughts with most words spelled correctly.
As a former elementary school teacher, I have seen many kids go through all these phases of writing. When they are given the chance to write without having to worry about spelling or grammar, they become confident writers. It isn’t to say that spelling and grammar isn’t important, but there should be opportunities when kids can write, free of those constraints.
Now that my kids are grown, I am so glad we took the time to do this. I have two, 3-ring-binders for each of them, filled with memories. We tried to write each day, but at times life got the best of us and sometimes it was a couple of days or even weeks between writings. It’s ok though. As I look through the binders now, I am reminded about fun things we did, who was important to each of them, and what they enjoyed doing. These are wonderful keepsakes that I will always have.
Here are examples from each of their binders. I picked ones to show their progressions.
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Make some time to find out the joys and benefits of writing with your children.
