Summer Journal

Looking for a simple way to keep kids writing this summer?! Whether you’re a parent hoping to battle summer slide or you’re a teacher who wants to keep kids learning over the break, our free summer journals are the perfect solution.

Grab your copy below!  Then, for more writing fun, snag our Writing Center Starter Kit for your classroom or homeschool room!

My students write in their “Morning Journal” right after putting their backpacks and folders away.  This simple daily writing has made a huge impact on their abilities!

At the beginning of the year, our goal was to write at least one sentence each day. And now, my first graders write detailed, silly and READ-able journal entries with many sentences. It has been so much fun to see them grow!

Getting Ready

To prep the summer journals, I bought each of my students a new composition notebook.  It may sound expensive, but if you stock up when they are on sale, you can grab a lot for just a little.

Then, I printed out a cover and the resource pages for each of my kiddos.

To make the journals more personalized, I made sure to print the cover with the kid clip art that looked most like them!  I have a pretty diverse class and I wanted to be sure that was reflected.

Next, I glued the covers and resource pages into the composition notebooks with Elmer’s glue and added a personal note from me with a Sharpie.

Summer Journals

Since these journals were a little summer surprise for my kiddos, I waited to give them out until the last week of school.

We gathered on the classroom carpet with our morning journals (some of my kids even went through two journals during the school year) and we looked back on how far we had come.

I asked for students to point out what they had worked hard to improve in their writing throughout the year and we compiled a huge list: capitalization, punctuation, spacing, spelling and adding details.

I told my students I had a surprise for them!

Clapping their legs to give a drum roll, I revealed the brand new summer journals they were going to get to take home.

Talk about an encouraging atmosphere!  They were thrilled and excited to keep their writing going over the summer.  And honestly, who doesn’t love a fun little gift?

My teacher heart grew a little bit knowing that this journal gave them so much joy AND a place to keep up their fantastic writing work!

Download for Free

Want a copy for yourself?  Just click the blue button below to download and then hop over and grab our Writing Center Starter Kit!