Thinking Tree - Funschooling Journals

[lexi]

Anyone used these books lately? 
I’m considering using one for summer time to see how each of my girls like them. 
Any recommendations? 
Are they busy work? How independent are they?

edited to add: my girls are 12, 11, 9, and 6

Edited March 31, 2022 by lexi

[Brittany1116]

They vary widely by age and topic. We have used some for scripture, Kindergarten, character traits, vocab, geography, and US history. My oldest especially loves the geography Travel Dreams series. I would say the best way to understand how they are set up is to look through them on their site, then check YouTube and/or Amazon review photos and videos to see inside. 

[lexi]

Thanks. I’ve been having such a hard time finding samples of them that it’s making it impossible to decide if they would be a good fit for my girls. I wish they had samples on their site. 

[AnneGG]

I’m not a huge fan. We have used portions of 12 months in forest, space, and the autumn themed journal. 12 months in the forest was a huge let down. It is not a nature study journal.

I don’t think it’s necessarily busy work, but if you’re doing it everyday the pages are very repetitive. It can be set up to be independent if your children are self motivated and focused.  

 It’s more of a stop gap thing here. We used it when we moved, when I was sick for a week, when my mom “subbed” for me, etc. 

 

If you order with Amazon prime, at least you can return it for free if you don’t like it. 

[Brittany1116]

57 minutes ago, lexi said:

Thanks. I’ve been having such a hard time finding samples of them that it’s making it impossible to decide if they would be a good fit for my girls. I wish they had samples on their site. 

They do have (or did have last time I was there 2019ish) more samples on their FB group page. But I find a lot on YT and Amazon reviews. We like the specific subject books, not the DIY HS journals like the 12m books.

[2_girls_mommy]

I absolutely love Funschooling journals, but I don't just hand them to my kids to do on their own because they would do the bare minimum. I generally have an idea of how I want them to use each page in them. For example, on the film pages, I usually have picked out a series of documentaries they'll be using to go with whatever we are studying. One tip I have is that I do one with them. I personally love the mom journals, so I pull mine out and do one of my film pages at the same time. One year I bought each of my high schoolers and me the same one that we worked through all year. I had an elaborate morning journal time all set up. On the reading pages with four squares, I did one history read aloud, then they each got one square for silent free reading, one square for their individual assigned literature book, and one square for Bible. On the travel pages, we'd research places we were studying about or cities we were planning trips to. 

We have never used them as our core curric. We did journal time in the morning and did one page a day instead of doing a full day's worth of work using the journal as the center of our curric. The coloring pages were used during our read aloud time while I read. If it was a math page day, they each had extra math, outside of curriculum to do, either games or an online practice app or something. We all like the thinking games pages which are just pages from the Dyslexia Games series. They are good visual discrimination work for my dd with dyslexic symptoms which is why I started using these to begin with. On the spelling search pages I had my child with spelling issues do the spelling as it says, but for my older, amazing speller, I had her find the words, then look up definitions, so it was a vocabulary exercise for her. It was kind of our morning basket time. We each had our basket with our books and colored pencils and journals and did this to start the day, but it varies since we did whatever page was next. On the planner page, we used that page as a time to break open our calendars and update goals and projects and to do lists together. 

Another way we used one for my mdd in 7th grade was that she got an hour for journal time every morning on her own to work as much as she wanted. She designed her own unit study that year and picked the encyclopedia she read and drew from, the video series she used, etc. She is the one who fell in love with these. It was a really good way to start the day for her before we jumped into skills subjects that she always struggled with. In high school she used the fashion journal paired with a unit study on the history of fashion and did an entire year of American history paired with the History of Fashion for two full credits. Another I really liked was the Money one for economics. It was actually really good for high school economics. 

For my ydd who is only 8, I use a very beginning one only as an occasional thing. It's one geared at ages 3-7. There are no instructions or explicit teaching, and I think at the young ages it is just adding extra work on top of the necessary skills subjects, whereas for olders they can be notebooking pages, used however you need them, paired with whatever resources you want. So for her, I just pull it out to shake things up sometimes, like we'll spend a day reading a book and do some copywork, drawing and coloring about that story for a break from regular LA topics.  I did buy the space and the rocks and minerals ones for her science only when they were on a very discounted sale. They are much too fat for her to need that much on one topic at her age, so I wouldn't have paid full price. I actually glue photos of our projects into them and use them for her written narrations about topics, instead of the WTM blank paper notebook for ekem science. I assume I'll use them again in middle school for notebooking pages on those topics when we cycle back through. I have one digital download of the Dino doodle one for her. I like it because I just print off the feelings pages and the thinking puzzles pages to start our mornings. I got that one free. It wouldn't have been worth it just to use those two pages only. But I do think I'm going to print it in full for morning journal time for 3rd grade next year. 

And, as I said, I love the mom ones. I'm in my 5th one I think? I use them for planning, taking notes in church and from meetings and seminars, to take notes from my own readings, and some pages I do with my kids as noted. I'm a big journaler though, always have been, so they're right up my alley. I actually use my Instagram to post photos of some of my art and junk journals, and have posted a few of my mom pages from my Thinking Tree. 

One last thought, look at YouTube for complete flip through a of different ones. There are tons of videos on them. That's how I pick which I want.