Kid journals

I went to a scrapbooking night a few weeks ago and met a lovely lady who was finishing a journal.
She had joined along in a Big Picture Class and did an online course in journalling and I have to say, I was WELL impressed. So much detail, such interesting topics to write about. Time limits, photography, all about herself.. all rolled into a beautiful memory of herself.

I was instantly hooked and began researching.... STOP. I have to finish this wedding first.... but once its done, I am so doing this!
Would you like to join me??

In my thinkings and musings I talked to Jumeirah about it and she quickly became keen too. So I had a look at some ideas and found something perfect for her that she can start now.
If you sign up you can gain access to free courses and one was called " All about me". Its a mini book of sorts but instead I took some of the questions and pointers and will help her create a full size scrap book.

So we set aside some time today and talked about what we were going to do.... one question per week, 15-20 minutes to write, eithe a photo or a drawing, she can then type if she chooses to, and then we will get together with another of her friends whos also keen to do this and spend some time creating each page together. Sounds like so much fun!! And so I gave her the first question.

It was:

List 20 memories.

She began and I sat and watched her go through her life and try to remember important things that happened to her.... I tried not to help and found after about 5 minutes she was lost in her world and I walked away just a short distance to give her some space.

Once she had written for about 20 minutes I checked to see how she was going.... she had gotten a bit mind blank so I allowed her to leave it and come back later on, but all through the day she kept remembering things she wanted to write down.

This is her list:

20 Memories

1 I remember the first day I got Thomas. It was for my 7^th birthday.

2 I remember when I burnt my finger on the glue gun because I touched it.

3 I remember when Barney was chasing me and I got a big scratch because I fell over.

4 I remember when I went to Alice’s party and Maddison Simpson smacked her head at the bottom of the pool.

5 I remember when I got my ears pierced at the chemist and it also hurt.

6 I remember when I was performing in Jazz and I was cold so I had a dressing gown.

7 I remember when I went to the dinosaur  show with Mum, Dad, Andrew, Nanna, Grandad, Amahli and Jared  and I was scared .

8 I remember when I was performing for dance group but I was sick but performed well.

9 I remember when I got a bee sting in my foot and I had to put cold ice on it while I was watching Marine Life.

10 I remember when I went to Sydney to see the Easter Show with Ma, Pa, and my family and I fell asleep in the bus.

11 I remember when I got my piano for Christmas and it had 99 sounds and it was AWESOME.

12 I remember when the preschool kids went to try out Tacking Point Public School and we got to help them.

13 I remember when it was Anzac Day and I had a lot of anzac biscuits and Dad got a new canoe.

14 I remember when I went to the porpoise pool with Chelsea and my family and saw two bottlenose dolphins named bucky and zip.

 15 I remember when I went to go to the doctor to get my needles on my arm and I went “ ouch “ but it did not hurt at all.

16 I remember when Mum said “If you don’t cry for a week at school you can go to Jumbos” and that’s what I did. I used to cry in kindy because                    bullied me.

17 I remember when on Monday after school Mum told me that Thomas was lost so I cried all afternoon until Mum found Thomas 3 days later!

I was amazed at what she remembers.. and she was really proud of herself for doing it. We talked about chatted all the rest of the day about things on her list, how they made her feel, how she had changed as she grew up.
And at this point I was SO SO excited that she would have something like this to look back on in 5, 10 even 20 years and hopefully stir some of those memories.

Other skills this great little activity encouraged was writing skills, typing skills ( she wanted to do this bit by herself and shes getting pretty quick!), spelling, memory recall and patience.

I seriously recommend having a look at the big picture class website, to get inspired to do one yourself or even get your kids to do one!

I know its something I am really looking foward to doing for ME. :)