In August 2018, Denise Gaskins (of the fabulous Let's Play Math and Math You Can Play books) offered a review copy of her new Discovery Journal. I requested one for First Daughter, who loves all things quotable. The quotations all appear at the tops or bottoms of pages in the same color as the dots. They don't get in the way. First Daughter did enjoy them. She read through all the quotes as soon as we got the book.
This is an excellent dot journal. The left-hand page has alternating dots to make easy triangles while the right-hand page keeps the dots lined up vertically and horizontally for a perfect grid. Ms. Gaskins shared some ideas for sketching with the journals on her blog and another one in an email to me. I tried to encourage First Daughter to try some of these in her journal. I also encouraged her to use our compass to draw circles and then made designs inside of them. But First Daughter really just wanted to use it for her math assignments. Every once in a while, she would doodle or use the dots to sketch out a triangle or graph for one of her problem sets, but she wasn't very interested in exploring all the fun ways you can connect dots.
The journal itself held up really well. First Daughter carried it everywhere and often left it lying around, but not a single page fell out and the both covers are still attached. The weight of the pages is good, too. They are thicker than the pages you would find in the dotted composition books in the school supplies aisle. Pen does not go through it, though our markers did. The colored pencils work well on them, too.
The post contains my honest opinion. I received a free copy of the Discovery Journal from the author. The link to Amazon is an affiliate link.
