Hello,  my name is Michelle Roberts and I am a homeschool mom of about 16 years now.  I have ten children and still enjoy the time I get to spend learning with them.  I’d like to introduce you to the Literary Journal.  It is one of the best things that I have implemented in my homeschool.

In 2005 I created the Literary Journal for use by charter schools, commonwealth schools, and university students.  Not long after,  I was asked to teach a scholar class for a group of homeschool/charter school  students near our home.  The students all created their own Literary Journal.  The journals they created have had lasting value.  The notes they took about the books they read and the subsequent book reviews they wrote will be of value to them forever.  I decided then to offer them to all homeschoolers as an educational tool.  I began with my own children,  showing them how they could use the journal as part of their daily routine.  Because the Literary Journal is equipped with many blank tabs, they could record their daily and monthly goals in them.  Other blank tabs could be used as a place to keep a daily journal of their homeschooling day – what they learned, what they thought about what they learned, etc.  It is a sort of commonplace book.  Those involved in Boy Scouts could keep all the merit badges they were working on filed in the A-Z tabs.  Hobbies can be journaled about and kept under the  blank tabs.  If they write poetry, or I should say “when” they write poetry, they can keep all their poems filed under the same blank tab.  We have blank pages available for drawing, sketches, pictures etc.

The journals don’t become obsolete in a year either.  When the journal is full, purchase another one and separate out some of the things that are not as important as others.  Keep one journal as an archive and the other as a working journal.  In time the record of your books and great quotes can be separated into two different binders.  When you get to that point,  you have gathered a lot of information, reviews, great quotes, etc.  It’s all organized, right at your fingertips, and provides you with a wealth of knowledge and information according to topic. Your children will have an ability to really see their progress through the years.  It becomes a book of remembrance for them.

I find it to be a wonderful way to teach leadership skills as they learn to be accountable to themselves through the goals they write and strive to accomplish.  As I review their days with them, I go right to their journals to read what they have been up to.  I encourage good penmanship and believe in the value of cursive hand writing as it trains the brain to think in specific ways ( The Brain That Changes Itself   by Norman Doidge). However, we do take advantage of the blank filler pages and they do a lot of their reports on the computer and then when all the editing is complete, they print them off on the blank pages and file them in their journals.  It really works well.  They love that final printed copy of their book report and how it looks in their journal.

You will enjoy the system and what it offers you and your children.  The journals are high quality and long lasting.  They will handle the abuse that kids can sometimes give.  I encourage you to give them a try.