All this week the little class at the little school, smack in the middle of the big bad city, has been preparing to go on vacation. That means every afternoon we’ve been hard at play in our visual journals. Some of the little punks are on their 2nd books!
The completed journals live on the round table. Everyone loves touching them, picking them up, stacking them up high, and poring over the pages. It is the exclamation mark of the room. Ground zero for sheer happiness. Tomorrow the journals will be carried away and given good homes. It’s like Christmas Eve – the kids just can’t wait to get them home!
When we return to school in May we’ll keep up the visual journaling until the very last day of 2nd grade. This project has been such a dear one. I’m glad you’ve been along for the ride. Your collective good will has been a real boon to the psyche of the littles and the one big.
These lucky punks have brand new writing journals too! (Thanks to a kind & generous blog reader from Illinois.) The big box arrived at school a couple of weeks ago and each child chose their very own special book. A depository for all their secret thoughts and BIG ideas. We are rich with supplies, journals, and big doses of joy.
Hi! I am a teacher of fourth graders. I love the idea of visual journals with your students. I have been wanting to do this, but am not sure how. Could you give some pointers, perhaps? We are in our last nine weeks of the year and I would like to send them off with something special to remember fourth grade. 🙂
Thanks, Jill
What age range are these kids? I am going to be teaching a similar class in journaling and collage to a group of school kids as part of an artist residency project this fall.
oh, this is so amazing!!! maryann, you are such an inspiration. here in texas, when bush was governor he cut our arts programs and put more emphasis on math and english testing – i forget what that kind of testing is called. but all year the teachers get ready for these tests so that our schools can score well. they don’t have a regular art class. a teacher comes in every 3 weeks to do a project with them. so we are setting up a visual journaling day. one day a week i will spend the entire day at the school. i will get a new group every hour. and we will play our little hearts out. and this is all because of you. if you have any pointers please please tell me. the local scrapbook store owner help me set it up so we have some supplies through her. and we have free magazines through the library. and i have years of journals as examples. may i also share your class’ stories and pictures with them?
absolutely priceless!!!
jan
An absolutely PERFECT example of “Jump for Joy!”
Where can we find out more information on your online classes?
i signed up for the class but am unable to access the class blog…maybe i got an invite and accidently discarded it (this sounds like me im afraid)!