Whole Class Journals, Montessori Style

I first got the idea for doing a whole class journal from Pinterest and from a terrific blog I discovered, I Love My Classroom. I love the idea of having an individual notebook for one designated journal topic that the entire class can take turns writing in. Students can take turns reading what their classmates have written as well. Teachers all over the blogosphere are raving about how much their students love these journals. This would be perfect for my language arts shelf, as I am committed to sprucing up that area with some new work for the upcoming school year.

So, as you can see, I made some changes to make the journal more “Montessori.” First, I decided to use Central Theme Story Cards that I downloaded for free at Montessori for Everyone, a fabulous site for Montessori materials. These are full color, printable cards that have pictures and words related to specific themes, such as “A Rainy Day” or “Fun at the Park.” There were six different ones in all.  So instead of a traditional journal prompt, children will use the visual cues from the pictures to get started, and use the story words to add details. I will be sure to laminate the cards for durability when I get to school.

I thought it would be wasteful to use a whole notebook; since we have small class sizes in my school, it would probably never get filled up. So I decided to use a report cover instead of a notebook. This way, I could add as many pages as needed. I plan to fill them with triple hole punched, lined writing paper.

     

Then I made a cover sheet, with a title, some basic instructions, and a pocket made from a plastic sheet protector that I cut down. This will get glue dotted to the cover page, and it will allow the children to pull the story card out of the pocket and place it next to them for reference as they are writing, so they won’t have to flip the folder open and closed to see the words.

Once all the children have contributed to the journal with their entry, I can remove the entries, bind them with a new cover, and add them to the library. Then I can simply add a new story card to the front pocket and a fresh batch of writing paper inside! They can be reused again and again. I actually made two of these folders, so I can have two different journals on the shelf at a time.

I also found Imagine Story Cards, also at the Montessori for Everyone site, so I made a set of journals to use with these pictures as well. As you can see, these cards are simply photos of people, families, objects and places from around the world, without any words. One could use photographs or pictures from magazines as well.

The cover sheet on this journal is slightly different, as it lists specific questions, such as, “What is this picture about?” and “Why did someone take this picture?” I plan to use this journal the same way as the first.

As you can see, I love writing, and love to get my students writing 🙂

~Silvana