The Old Schoolhouse Reviews PWP Literacy Journals

The Old Schoolhouse Book Review
by Amanda Hopkins
"My kids love to read, and I love to find a way to keep track of what they read in a fun way. My Every Day a Story Journal, For Girls Who Read from Pageant Wagon Publishing, was a wonderful way to track our books in a fun way."

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This journal is a paperback book with 160+ pages. We start out with an introduction to the parent/teacher. This introduction starts out with a little background of this journal and how reading every day can be so great for your children. This does have a Christian viewpoint, so some of these benefits of reading do include important things about God and the Bible.

The journal has 26 weeks of space to record your child’s reading. And this is more than just a place for mom or dad to write down the titles of the books. This is a journal for your child to record their stories. This could be reading, writing, narrating, or listening to a story.

Each week has a character or value action badge to start the week. It is recommended to try and find reading that goes along with this badge for the week. The next page is the story chart. There are seven lines, one for each day of the week. This is where your child will write the title and author of the book, note if they read, listened, wrote, or narrated the story. They also get to give their rating for the book.
There is a page for new words from the week They have space on a chart for the word and the definition. Following this page is the Book Report page. This is the page where your child can do a full book report on one of the books from the week. I love that this is included, as I am just starting book reports with my 8-year-old daughter. We can spend time once a week talking about her favorite book and I can help her understand the protagonist and antagonist. Not only that, but she has the chance to write her favorite quotes and we can search up related Bible verses. I love it when we can find a way to include God and the Bible into everything we do.

​The last part of the week was the story illustrations. This was where my daughter could show her love for the books with her artistic skills. I love watching her show her skills in drawing and see what stood out from the week of reading.

After the 26 weeks, the final project in the journal is to write a short story following a writing prompt. While I have not gotten that far with my daughter yet, I love the idea of finishing with this and seeing what she has to say. Not only that, but this journal can be stored and saved for future reference for your kids to look back on. On the cover, there is a space to write the book number so these can be kept in order for the children.

This is a simple to use journal. We were able to spend a little time each day writing down our story, and once a week we would work on the rest of the weekly pages. The pages are black and white, so my daughter was able to color in the pictures and doodle as she wanted as we were working on this. For the amount of learning that we are getting from reading books, it was nice to have a simple way to jot down our experiences to treasure.

I am thrilled to have this journal in our house. I need to get one for my son and myself. I love the way of keeping track of what we read in one journal that can be stored. Not only that but by having this book, it reminds me that even if we get busy, we need to spend a few minutes every day, just reading.

If you are looking for a fun way for your child to record their stories they are reading, you need to check this journal out. I highly recommend it and I know we will be getting more as we fill this one up.

Product review by Amanda Hopkins, reprinted with permission from The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine, LLC, December 2019

Visit the Pageant Wagon Bookshop to learn more about ALL the Pageant Wagon Literacy Journals for boys and girls ages K-5th grade--My Every Day a Story Journal, and 6th-high school--My Every Week a Book Journal (girls) and Every Week a Read Literary Forensics Journal (boys).