Activity Days: Journal Writing With M&Ms

We had an activity on the importance of writing in journals. We talked about how it can help us remember things, help our ancestors understand how we lived, and how it can help us think through what is going on in our lives.

Writing in a journal can be difficult to do so I wanted to help give the girls some motivation for what to write about. I found something similar on Pinterest and adapted it for my group. The one I saw only had about six colors of M&Ms; each color represented something you could write about in a journal. I didn't think that was enough. I came up with 11 general things that 8 year old girls could write about in their journals.

To get a total of 11 different colors of plain M&Ms, I bought a pack at Costco with the usuals then went to Zurchers and got some individual colors (which, by the way, are a lot more expensive than I thought they'd be).

Here's the list of things I thought the girls could write about.

1. Something interesting that happened today (or since the last entry).
2. Something you do well or did well today.
3. Something interesting or fun you remembered today and what made you think of it.
4. Something about school.
5. Something you learned today/recently.
6. Something you are grateful for.
7. Something you did for someone else or something nice someone did for you.
8. Something you have a question about or want to understand better or an answer you received.
9. Something you want for the future.
10. Something about your family/friends.

For the activity, I gave each girl a small pad of paper, a colored pen (they thought colored pens were the greatest), and a bag full of M&Ms. I had the girls choose an M&M, use their guide to figure out what they were supposed to write about for that color, then gave them some time to write (which was pretty difficult for some of them). Then they ate their M&M and chose another one.