serenaV has been keeping a “journal” since she was three. I originally got the idea from a post in 12 Questions for 12 Families from Women and Cruising. We started out with dictated journal entries and over time, it has evolved into a fun collaboration with V.
V decided that she wanted to share her travel journal so that her grandparents can see it. Here is the video:
V Journal from Serena on Vimeo.
Some notes on our collaboration:
- V can’t write yet, so she dictates to me. I found that some days she’s more likely to do it if I record her talking on my iPhone, then transcribe her monologue into her journal. She also likes to listen to herself talk.
- Over time, the journal has evolved. She started cutting and pasting in pictures from magazines and travel brochures. She also adds stickers, bumper stickers, maps and anything else she collects along the way.
- She is just growing her wings as an artist, so sometimes she asks for *commissioned* drawings from me.
- If we are at a museum or park, I often bring her journal and suggest that she get it stamped. It’s up to her to make the decision, and usually she likes to get lots of stamps.
V loves to have me read back her journal entries. Her journal is much more rich and interesting because of our collaboration–better than my vision of a diary.