How to Teach Your Child to Journal Thankfulness
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With the season of purposeful thanksgiving approaching this month, journaling is a great way to teach your child to be grateful! So I’ve gathered a few different approaches and wanted to encourage you on how to teach your child to journal thankfulness.
1. Consider the age of your child when choosing a journaling method.
For preschool years, this wonderful book, The Blessings Jar, is a fabulous method of teaching your child to count their blessings without requiring any writing skills. For elementary age children, be sure your expectations of the volume of writing are in line with your child’s abilities.
2. Decide if you wish to purchase journals or a special notebook in which to write or if you’d like to use what you have.
Upside Down Homeschooling has a 25 Day Gratitude Journal for Kids available currently for $1.99.
Dayspring has beautiful journals available that are very appropriate and fun for children to use as a gratitude journal. Click HERE to use code shipping30 to get FREE shipping over $30 purchase.
And you can take a look at the prayer journals I outlined in this post specifically offering prayer journal suggestions for even more ideas.
3. Ann Voskamp hosts a Joy-in-a-Box free printable set to use in assisting children to journal.
4. Today I have a FREE JOY journal printable you can use in two different ways.
If you decide that simple is a great way to go, then this simple printable is one you can use to print out and teach your child to journal thankfulness. The straightforward style of the printable was designed with children in mind, but honestly I think anyone could benefit from this simple joy journal guide.
Option A would be to use this printable as a bookmark for a journal:
If you click on the bookmark, the PDF will open with 6 bookmarks available to print.
Option B- you can use these sheets to print and place in a binder for journaling:
4.No matter the method you choose to use for a gratitude journal or JOY journal, choose a time of day wisely.
Think of a time that works well for your family. Perhaps after devotions or just before dinner would be a great time to work on gratitude journals.
5. Set the number of days you’d like to journal or decide on a set number of entries in the journal in order to have a goal.
When the goal has been completed, it’s a great idea to assess the tool, method, or manner and determine a new goal.
What ideas do you have for teaching your child to journal thankfulness? I’d love it if you’d share them with us!
Today I’m at The Better Mom with 10 Ways to Teach Your Children to be Thankful– would you stop by and check it out?
We’re doing a “thankful tree”. I cut out a tree, hung it on the window, and a bunch of leaves. Every night my husband, 2 yr old, 4 yr old, and I write what we’re thankful for on a leaf and tape it to our tree. On thanksgiving we’ll read them all to help us remember all of the things we have to be thankful for.
awesome, Kim! We’re doing a thankful tree too! I was planning to post about it this week. 🙂 If you have a photo of yours, I’d love to post it to spread the idea! Just send it to my email “rachel at rachelwojo dot com” Thanks for your comment!