This year has changed the way our kids are educated. A lot. Many kids are at home. Many kids are at school, but in different circumstances than any of us are used to. And many parents and caregivers have taken on a more active role in the education of kids. As a mother and educator, I can’t help but believe this is a good thing, though I will be the first to tell you it is NOT convenient and it is far from easy.
When I decided to homeschool my kids this year, I dug up all of the knowledge I could about teaching. I dusted off some cobwebs in my brain. I wanted to set my kids up for success. And I remembered something I had been taught in an education class that wasn’t initially on my radar: CLOSURE.
We all have a pretty good idea about teaching a lesson. We’ve figured out we need something to grab attention and something to engage students. We need our students to practice what they learn. But that is not where a lesson ends. Call it a “wrap-up,” or “closure,” or whatever. But closing a lesson is a crucial component to an effective lesson. It allows learners to process what they have learned on their own terms.
But by the end of a lesson and the end of a LONG day, we all want to be done. I get it. I really really do. Back in the day, when I was teaching in a classroom, I stood at my classroom door a few minutes before the bell was scheduled to ring and I asked my students to tell me what they learned that day. But now I have five kids spread out throughout our house working on different subjects and changing classes at varying times. I had to figure out a way to catch my kids and give them a chance to process what they learned that day even if I couldn’t be immediately in front of them for the process.
And that is how the Reflection Journal was born!
On top of the need for lesson closure, I knew I wanted my kids to look for the good in each day. I wanted them to focus on gratitude and I wanted to encourage them to be grateful without nagging about it. I also wanted to sneak in a little writing each day and to encourage skills like summarizing that take time and practice to master.
I made colorful pages with simple writing prompts like, “If I could describe this day in one word it would be _________” and “Today I learned __________”. I created six different designs so that the designs would fall on different days of the week each week. Each page asks about what was learned that day and each page asks about gratitude. The beauty of these pages is that I can require my older kids to write more and I can allow my 2nd-grader to write less. They would probably work best for students between 1st and 6th grade.
We have been using these exact same reflection journals in our homeschool this year. It is the “exit ticket” at the end of the day. It’s essentially how they “sign out” of school each afternoon. They show their completed page to me with their planners (I have them write our plans for the day in their planners at the beginning of the day so they know what they’ll be doing throughout the day) at the end of the day and I quickly read through their responses and instantly get feedback about what they learned and what stood out to them. Plus, they have a chance to remember and process what they learned throughout the day. No matter how challenging the day was, I have been amazed to see that for the most part, my kids’ responses are positive. I honestly believe these journals have helped us end each day on a positive note, even when I am completely out of gas (I’m not going to lie–that happens often–I’m only human.).
I created each book to have 90 pages because I know how rough my kids are on books and I didn’t expect one book to make it through an entire school year. It looks like I was wrong there: these probably could’ve made it. They are in better shape than their planners! But I like the idea of starting fresh midway through the year. We’ll already have one completed book for them to go back and look at with pride.
If you are a homeschool parent this year, or your kids are in virtual classes and they need a little something extra, this reflection journal might be exactly what y’all need, too.
This could also be an effective tool for classroom educators as well. In her article for the International Literacy Association entitled “Lesson Closure: An Important Piece of the Student Learning Puzzle,” Kathy Ganske expounds on the importance of including closure with each lesson:
“The medical definition of closure provides a useful analogy. Here, closure refers to ‘a drawing together of edges or parts to form a united integument’ (Closure, n.d.), or outer whole. I believe that five minutes of closure can be sufficient pause to help students bring together key takeaways from the lesson, to think about what was important in the lesson, and to consider how their learning can help them be better readers and writers beyond this lesson and this day. This boost of awareness is important for ensuring that students realize why the activities they engaged in and the time they spent matter.”
https://ila.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/trtr.1587
If closure is not one of the strongest tools in your teaching toolbox, this might be the reinforcement you need. Or, if you need something to help provide closure to students who are learning synchonously and/or asynchronously, this might be your new BFF.
Since I am ordering more journals for my own kids, I thought I should share the love and make these available to you, too!
You can order these coil-bound, 90-page, Reflection Journals here.
If you want to try a couple pages, I am sharing a few as a free download so you can print them out at home and try them out. See if this would be something you would use with the children in your life. Please don’t share the digital files, though. You are more than welcome to share the link to this page and anyone can come on over and download them.
