Two days ago, in my article “My Favorite Things: Fun Summertime Challenges for Gifted Kids,” I mentioned that I would share six new summer activity ideas to keep your gifted and high-ability kids thinking all summer. Today is Day 2 of my new ideas! Here goes…
Do you journal? When I was a teenager, I had a journal. My journal was a place for me to write down the things that were meaningful for me during the day, my dreams, quotes that I heard or read that I liked, and a place to keep magazine articles that I wanted to read again (ones that I cut out from Seventeen and Teen Beat, lol). I remember that it was something that I hid in my room between my mattresses because I didn’t want anyone to read it other than me. I actually still have one of those journals, and it’s great fun to read what teenage-me thought about back then!
Fast-forward 18ish years, to when our oldest boys were old enough to write. Journaling was one of our summer activities so the boys would have something to look back on to remember the things they did and how they felt. It also was a way to keep up their writing skills over the summer. As they got a little older, they started to gripe a bit about having to write “so much” (literally just a paragraph, but IYKYK 😊). We happened to be on vacation in Orlando, Florida during one of these gripe sessions, and that is where “Postcard Journaling” was born!
I like to think I invented postcard journaling, but I’m pretty sure I didn’t. The idea was that the boys would send postcards to their grandmas and grandpas and to themselves instead of writing in their journals. Each time we went somewhere during our vacation, the boys would each pick out a postcard, and later that night would write to whomever they chose. The next day, we’d mail it (I always bought a roll of postcard stamps to take with us on vacation; do they even sell rolls of postcard stamps anymore??).
Anyway, over the years, looking back at our postcards have brought us great joy! In fact, I started postcard journaling myself as a type of souvenir for our family. While writing this blog post, I realized that I’ve actually been collecting postcards my whole life and even have one from my dearly departed Aunt Emmy when she was visiting family in Germany back in 1978! I keep all of our postcards in a really nice basket on our bookcase shelf so that anyone can look through them whenever they want.
So, what do you think? Do you think that postcard journaling is something that your kids of all ages would like, or do you think they would prefer the traditional “writing in a journal” method of writing this summer? In the comments, let me know what you think and what your experiences with kid journaling has been!
P.S. If your kids prefer to use a real journal for journaling, here are three interesting ones I found on Amazon (as an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases): Ages 5-7, Ages 8-12, Teenagers.
Teaching for Talent 