I’ve shared with you the importance of stimulating positive art talk in your Montessori classroom. It’s one of the easiest ways to get students interested in art. Once they’ve been allowed to explore their creativity through visual art, chances are, they’re going to be hooked and want to learn so much more. I’ve see it happen so many times! One of the best ways to keep them captivated, allow them to explore even more, and track their progress is through art journaling.
What I love about art journaling is that there’s no minimum talent or skill required—students of any age can benefit. All you really need is a journal, some simple art materials, and the willingness to get creative and have some fun.
What is Art Journaling?
An art journal is a book kept by artists as a visual—sometimes verbal—log of their thoughts, ideas, and creations. Art journaling the same concept as a written journal, but it combines writing with art and visual aspects. It’s a way for children to record their ideas and observations or respond to information they’ve learned with simple drawings and basic written descriptions.
It also gives them a space to explore. With art journaling, anything goes! Every style, medium, and technique can be used.
Art making is also powerful and therapeutic. Journaling gives students a healthy outlet to express their feelings and work through their emotions. For example, communicating through doodles can be much easier for children than talking.
How Art Journals Works
There’s no right or wrong way to do art journaling because they are personal to each artist! Students can use it to try out new techniques, document what happened to them that day or week, or artistically express the different emotions or issues they’re experiencing.
Students can keep their art journals with them or you can store them in a specific place on your art shelf or in a cabinet where they can grab them when they’re feeling creative. They can use the art supplies you put out on your art shelf to fill in the pages of their journal.
For the most part, journaling is an independent project and doesn’t require any lessons to complete. However, if you want to, you can provide simple prompts to inspire them; some examples may be: elaborate doodling, depicting poems, illustrating specific emotions, and creating patterned pages.
Make & Decorate Your Own Art Journal
Making an art journal is simple, all you really need is the journal itself—preferably filled with blank, un-lined pages.
Composition notebooks—although lined—usually cost about $1 or $2 each, and bulk pasts can be even cheaper. But I know purchasing a journal for each child in your class can still add up…so I’m offering you two solutions to cut down on costs.
1. Ask parents to donate journals. You’ll be surprised at how many parents will be willing to donate a few notebooks for your classroom.
2. Create a mini art journal out of plain paper:
- Take 4 sheets of 8 1/2 x 11 plain white copy paper
- Cut sheets in half (8 1/2 x 5 1/2), then fold in half into a mini booklet
- Bind loose pages with a rubber band or stitch together (along the fold)
- Stitching Instructions: get a thumb tack and press to make 3 holes along the fold; bind pages using a simple string stitch (watch video below).
Once you have your journal figured out, give students the opportunity to decorate their notebooks. If they’ll be using their own individual books make sure they put their names on them. Then put out a few basic art supplies (markers, stickers, glue, scissors, colored paper, beads, ribbons, etc.) and let them have fun. These will more than likely be the same supplies they’ll use to decorate the inside of their journals as well.
If your students choose to share their art journals with you, make sure you offer them supportive and nurturing language.
You never know…creating and encouraging your students to keep art journals might inspire you to start one yourself!
Learn more about teaching kids art lessons
Want more information on the types of techniques your students can handle or ideas for art projects outside of journals? Sign up for my absolutely FREE mini course, Phases of Art Development Guides & Art Project Ideas. It’s a quick guide to what your students are capable of and what to teach them at each age. They’re bite-sized videos that have proven helpful to many other Montessori teachers and they’ll give you a solid foundation to begin teaching art in your classroom!
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The Phases of Art Development is a quick digital course that explains how art making can help students develop their creativity, fine-motor skills, and focus. More importantly, I share what types of projects students at every age are capable of completing safely, and without making a mess.
Best of all—it’s free! To sign up for the course, click here.
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