Reading Journals in Subject Areas

Here's a reply to a discussion about reading journals. One lady suggested asking specific questions after reading/studying in a subject area (history, math, science, etc). Then, have your child write a journal entry. Too often our kids are fuzzy about what to write in a journal. Here's my response.

I think you hit the nail on the head. When I have my younger child write something in a journal, we usually discuss it beforehand. My older ones who have been doing this for a few years so they are on their own. If they can’t think of something on their own, they usually come talk to me.

I really like the idea of being specific in subject areas. I have heard of public school students journaling about math and thought it was crazy. . . probably because the teacher was told it didn’t matter if they got the right answer as long as you had their “feelings” about math UGH!!!! I digress… My son likes math and would probably enjoy writing about it. Another idea in math is to have your child read a living book on math (Sir Cumference, Mathematicians are People Too, and so on). Then he can journal about the math concept he learned from that book. I have been adding living books to our math section this year. You can see it HERE. I am slowly adding the rest of the books over the next few weeks.

Kerry