Journals and Family Report Cards.

our family journals-- can you tell what song we were learning that night?

1.  i LOVE family journals.

as the new year started, i invested in new journals for everyone in my family.

we have a morning devotional, most mornings, and it needed some PEP!

new journals were just the thing.

(don't you love office supplies?!)

actually, i bought some new paper, sticky notes, and a bunch of fun colored gel pens.

we take turns giving a spiritual thought and we try to print out something that the kids can tape into their journals.

i LOVE that the little girls are busy coloring in their journals while the big kids are taking notes.

journals have not only added some fun to our morning devotionals, it has also helped a lot with personalizing it.

i love that the kids have a place to write down scriptures they like or quotes they want to remember.

we keep our journals in a small box near our scriptures.

i don't let them take them to their rooms or write in them whenever they want... because i know they will get lost or ruined.

{the family night before i gave the kids their new journals i said we're going to play a Memory game-- i gave half the kids a piece of paper and a pencil, and half nothing.  then i told them to remember the items i was going to say... i started listing random things apple, cat, happy, love, school, coke, etc.  i think i listed about 20 things.  then i asked who could remember what i had said.  the kids who had taken notes of my list could recall all 20 and the other kids didn't think that was fair.  i smiled and asked what they could learn from that example?  then, i asked how that game relates to writing journals.  the kids responded PERFECTLY and i didn't even need to teach them the lesson-- they taught it for me!}

2.  i LOVE family report cards.
for family night i pulled out my famous white board and i asked the kids to name some of the different areas of our life.

we came up with a list that included, scripture time, being kind, doing chores, mornings, bedtime, straightening up, doing fun things, exercise, watching screens, etc.

then i asked them how they thought we had done the past week 1-10, 1 being bad, 10 being good.
i asked the kids to look at the numbers and make some conclusions...
like "we had scripture time each day and were kind to each other.  we watched a lot of tv and didn't do very well with our chores."
we circled the areas where we were the lowest and set two family goals for the week.
i think they are do jobs happily in the morning and no screens after school but do exercise daily... or something like that.
then, i had the kids rate themselves individually 1-10.
they circled their low spots and set a couple personal goals. 

oh how i LOVED hearing them set goals for themselves instead of me encouraging them to be better.

it was SO good. 

give it a try!