How to Start a Learning Journal
What is a Learning Journal?
A learning journal is a blank sketchbook that is used to hand draw and personalize learning activities for your child, based on different developmental skills. It is also:
- one of our all-time FAVORITE ways to make learning fun at home
- a way to connect with your child and to help them take ownership of their learning
- a special keepsake holding all of the completed activities together for you in a notebook.
Want to skip ahead to find out more about my Learning Journal Membership where you’ll receive access to all 4 of my Digital Learning Journal Guides organized by age group? Click the “SIGN ME UP!” button below:
Want to know more before signing up? I get it! CLICK HERE for more details, and a preview of each guide!
If you like the idea of a learning journal, but don’t have the time to draw up your own activities and would prefer something already made for you, then you can check out my spiral-bound, fully laminated and wipe-clean activity books!
What Supplies Do I Need to Start a Learning Journal?
Not a lot! Honestly, you can do a LOT with just the sketchbook, some markers or crayons, and some dot stickers or dot markers. I am highlighting my top 10 learning journal supply items below, but will also include the link to the rest of my learning journal favorites!
DISCLAIMER: This post contains Amazon Affiliate links, that I will earn a small commission from, if you choose to purchase through them. The support of my business in that way does not go unnoticed, and is always very appreciated.
At What Age Can I Start a Learning Journal?
Whenever you feel like you have the capacity to start creating journal pages, AND whenever you feel your little one is ready to give them a shot! I started doing learning journal activities with my two younger children when they were around 18 months old and we started with some very simple dot sticker activities.
At this age, you should expect that they will still need quite a bit of your support. It may even look like you peeling the stickers for them but letting them place the stickers onto the page, or even just “helping” you place them onto the page.
Regardless of how much support you’re giving, you are still exposing them to this style of learning, and giving them opportunities to try new things. They are also learning by watching you, and are developing vocabulary just by hearing you talk about/narrate the activity.
How Do I Know What Skills are Developmentally Appropriate for Different Age Groups?
A question that I get asked frequently about different activity ideas that I share on my Instagram page is “What age is this good for?” or, “Can I do this with my 2 year old?”
As a former preschool and kindergarten teacher with a degree in Elementary Education, this part comes pretty naturally for me, but to help make this part a little easier for you, I’ve put together a general list of developmentally appropriate concepts for different age groups that you can follow when brainstorming learning journal ideas.
IMPORTANT NOTE: When browsing these lists, remember that ALL CHILDREN grow and develop at different rates. I’m providing age RANGES rather than specific ages because what one child can do at age 3 can vary greatly from what another child might be able to do at age 3. The intent of these lists are not to make anyone feel overwhelmed or “behind” in any way.
On the contrary, if when browsing these lists you feel your child is further along than what’s listed for their age group, then that’s great and you can also feel free to browse the list for the next age group.
It’s also important to note that this is not a comprehensive list of ALL skills that children at these ages should be able to do; rather, these are some of the skills that I have found to work well with the learning journal activity model.
How Often Should We Do Journal Activities?
Another question I get frequently asked on this topic is how many activities should we be doing a day? There really isn’t an exact science, but ultimately you should do what you have the capacity to prep for and what you have time during your day for.
I also suggest playing off your child’s needs and interest level. If there is a certain concept you are sensing your child needs some extra practice with, then maybe you’re prepping lots of activities to support them in that. If your child is always asking for more activities and they are really engaged and enjoying them, then maybe you’re prepping lots of activities to support them in that.
If they aren’t super into the journal activities, but there are still concepts you want them to be working on, try to cater the activities to their interests in some way, and maybe keep journal time short and concise with only one activity a day.
There are several different ways you could approach learning journals by building them into a daily routine, or just using them as a tool on more of an “as-needed” basis.
If you wanted to work them into a daily routine, you could plan to prep a handful of pages over the weekend and have them ready to do 1-3 (depending on how long they take and if your child is engaged/wants to keep going or not) each morning or after nap during the week.
If you aren’t able to prep that many at once in advance, you could prep one or two each night before bed and have them ready for the next day.
If the consistency of all this is too much, and your schedule/routine isn’t fixed enough to make this work, then just prep when you have time, and pull the activities out when you have time - no one is going to hold you to any expectations but yourself (and maybe your child if they really look forward to journal activities😅).
How Do You Structure Learning Journal Time with Multiple Children?
Learning journal activities are great because often times an activity can be adapted and modified to fit the needs of different aged kiddos. If you have multiple children, you may prefer to have them all journaling at once. I have seen many homeschooling parents make this work for them during their school time.
Personally, in our home, learning journals are a way for me to connect with each of my kiddos individually. I (generally) wait to pull out any journal activities until I know I can give that child my undivided attention. This works well with my toddler who is still home with me during the day as we sometimes pull out journal activities in the mornings.
My daughter does half-day kindergarten most days so once we get my youngest down for his nap, sometimes we do some journal pages before her quiet time, while her big brother is still at school.
My oldest definitely gets the short end of the learning journal stick but he also picks up on concepts almost instantly as they are taught at school and has never needed much of anything extra from me at home. I do still pull a journal activity out for him from time to time to help reinforce something he’s learning at school and if I do, it’s typically in the evening after school or sometimes on a weekend afternoon.
Where Can I Find Learning Journal Activity Ideas?
Right here! I’ve got you covered. I’ve been creating learning journal activities for my three kids for 3-4 years at the time I’m writing this post and have several full journals and hundreds of ideas.
It brings me so much joy to be able to share my ideas with you all so that you don’t have to spend time trying to come up with them on your own! For the longest time, when someone asked where they could find journal activity ideas, the best I could do was tell them to scroll my Instagram feed, which is full of ideas, but they are all scattered amongst years and years worth of other kids activity content, and are not organized in any way.
I wanted a better way to be able to help, and that’s why I created my Digital Learning Journal Activity Guides. I decided to house them here on my website as a membership so that anyone who purchases a membership can have access to all FOUR of the digital guides, along with all future updates.
The four digital guides are organized by age group. The age groups are the exact same as what was listed in the graphic I shared earlier in this post about developmentally appropriate skills: Ages 1.5-3 (Toddler), Ages 3-5 (Preschool), Ages 5-6 (Kindergarten), and Ages 6+ (Early Elementary).
Within each of these four digital guides, you’ll find the following categories: Non-Seasonal, Fall, Winter, Spring, and Summer. The guides each include an “Activity Index” that has each journal activity listed and linked under the appropriate category. You can either click on an activity to jump directly to it, or just scroll through the guide.
What Else is Included in the Guides?
Here is where the real value comes in. Not only are you getting
- a photo of each activity, but you are also getting
- a list of materials (linked to Amazon) needed to prep and complete each activity
- the objective (what the child will be doing)
- a list of skills they will be working on, AND LAST BUT DEFINITELY NOT LEAST:
- MODIFICATIONS.
What are “modifications?” This is where I share alternative ways to complete the activity, or more frequently, ways to modify the activity to work for different age groups. This is the part I’m most excited about because it’s like you’re getting bonus activity ideas stemming from each original activity.
The guides are updated frequently with old and new journal ideas, and as long as I continue to create them, I will continue to add them to the guides notifying members via email as I do. The most recently added activities will be highlighted in the Activity Index for easy accessibility.
Preview a page directly from each of the 4 guides below!
So - if I’ve got you sold on learning journals as being THE BEST way to connect with and make learning fun at home for your kiddos, then come join my Learning Journal Membership so you can have access to all my ideas and get started ASAP!
A "learning journal" is a blank sketchbook that is used to hand draw & personalize learning activities for your child based on different developmental skills. This membership makes your learning journal experience a breeze by providing you with a digital toddler, preschool, kindergarten, & early elementary aged journal activity guide. The 4 guides are organized by developmentally appropriate, seasonal & non-seasonal activities, & are frequently updated with new ideas.
Love the idea of a learning journal, but not up for drawing the activities yourself? I can help! I’ve created a bunch of pre-made, REUSABLE activity books that include activities covering a variety of different skills for children ages 2.5-6.
If you like themed activities like you see me share from our learning journals, you’ll want to try my Seasonal Bundle. This bundles my 4 seasonal activity books, each with 6-8 different seasonal themes, at a discounted price. These seasonal activity books resemble my learning journals and the types of activities you’ll see in them the most. More details on what’s included in each seasonal book below!
