Friday, February 9, 2018

Second Son's Secret and Not-so-Secret Thoughts: Me Journal Review

created by Wee Society

Second Son is in first grade this year and, as I mentioned earlier this week, I like to choose a journal to complete together for one of our lessons. Somehow I stumbled on this one while wandering Amazon and decided to try it rather than my original plan to order the same one I'd used with First Son.

It was spectacularly successful. Second Son loved every page of this journal and the older kids were clamoring for their own copies.

First of all, the quality of the book is excellent: well-bound hardcover, thick pages, and bright bold colors on every page. The prompts are varied, covering the standard (trace your hand, name, age, etc.) and the unusual like "If I had a castle this would be my flag" and "This is me doing my signature dance move."


There were a few pages where the prompts led to an answer in words, which I would generally write for Second Son, but there were a lot that resulted in pictures. Because Second Son's drawings are a little unorthodox still, I would generally label them for future reference. Some of the more unusual and interesting results:
Number of steps from his bed to the front door: 18 (he counted)
The name of his band, if he had one: Fulcrum 
The room of his dreams: a full size bed, a flat screen TV, a Wii U, a swimming pool, and a vending machine.
What he would pack to go to outer space: water, all the Harry Potter books, electric shaver to cut my hair, food (bread, cheese, Doritos), toothpaste, toothbrush, favorite Lego box, Mousy Mouse (his stuffed animal kangaroo rat), and his Kindle
Number of jumping jacks he can do before he gets tired: 100 (and he did X-jacks!) 
We were also delighted to discover the inside of the book jacket has room for all sorts of "super secret" things and the cover of the book itself has room for personalization.

We did realize it was nice to have a book weight like this one to hold the book open as Second Son drew his pictures. He used his beeswax crayons for his drawings, but I think the pages are thick enough even for thin markers.

This was easily Second Son's favorite lesson. I had planned to compete just two or three pages a day, but we usually did two of three spreads (his interpretation). Working once a week, we finished it this month. He immediately carried it off to show to all his friends and family, excepts for the secrets on the inside of the dust jacket.

Hopefully he'll eventually let me have it back to save with his school memories!

I purchased this book new on Amazon and have received nothing for this review, but the links above are affiliate links.