At the end of this year, I would love for the twins to have more than just a digital record of this time we spent together. We are making journals so that they can draw a picture of their day! I am leaving space for a few printed photos as well. They can’t write, but I will put a few notes in for them to have a complete story each week. These will be their diaries of Our Year of Thursdays.
First we took a two of the leftover scrapbooks that came home as surplus supplies at the end of Gemma’s school year. They are big books filled with blank pages so that the twins can really have the space to express themselves and still have room for photos and text.
They had a great time decorating the front of the books with colored paper, stickers and images they cut from old magazines! Gemma wanted in on the fun as well so she made a book to be her journal using the daily prompts from Project Life 365. I really had to hold myself back from controlling the art direction of the whole thing. It was their mess to make and end result to love, not mine.
I tried to contact paper the decorated covers to keep them protected during a year of use, but I am fairly certain that after almost including myself, the carpet and part of the cat underneath the sticky clear plastic, I have made them look worse. I just told the kids that I added a bit of texture with the wrinkles and bubbles.
They are so excited to use their special books now. It has made the idea of what we will be doing over this year tangible in their little four year old minds.
{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
You have such beautiful ideas
Thanks, Fi Mims !
What a fantastic idea!!
LOVE THIS.
Do the kids get to write (draw) a diary on Thursdays only (since it’s the Year of Thursdays)? I’d love to do something similar with three of my own kids, so any pointers would be hugely appreciated
Oksana Antonenko this is my series of Thursday adventures with the twins. I am blogging all about it, but in a nutshell, the twins will be in school full time next year. I am dedicating one day a week (Thursdays) to just explore with them. We will do 52 different activities. They are helping lead the way with their interests as well as planned things that I have in mind. Each week, they will draw their day they had. I am going to add some details about what we did and some photos as well. Each Thursday, I will blog our adventure as well for others to get ideas and hear how things went. At the end of the year, they will have their drawings and my text in their journals to remember their last year at home with us during the weekdays!
That is a great idea! Someday they’ll love looking back through them!
this is such a great idea … and yes, contact is hard! i had plenty of practice doing my own high school notebooks (the cheaper stuff was always harder to work with too) … but that was such a long time ago i’d be interested to see if i’ve still got those hard-won, mad skills
This is brilliant idea! I will have to make a mental note of this one for when Lottie is bit oder. Thank you!
yes! get them writing early!
wonderful idea, looking forward to the blog updates, as I always enjoy your blogposts:) and hahah @”I just added a bit of texture”
If you are afraid of wear and tear, you can use loose papers (all the same size, made on the same orientation like portrait or landscape) tell them to leave a blank space of about 1/2 inch or 1/4 inch on one side of paper (the same on all the papers). So they can have it loose. And they can add more pages to it. Keep it in a folder or a box so when you have all the pages done, you can bind them into a book afterwards. That way you don’t have to worry about having not enough or too many pages. But personally, I love the wear and tear of a loved object. I don’t know if I made sense. Anyway, what a neat idea! They will cherish this when they are older : )
What a cute idea. I bet the journals are going to be so fun for them to look back on as they grow. As for contact paper, I loathe that stuff. I always have my husband cover the kids books ’cause I suck at it so badly.
Wonderful idea!