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How to Keep a Virus Diary for Kids

“I can shake off everything as I write; my sorrows disappear, my courage is reborn.”

Anne Frank
The Coronavirus image is layered beneath the letters for Diary. The background is an image of
the blooms of phytoplankton on the Chukchi Sea acquired on June 18, 2018,
by the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on the Landsat 8 satellite

These resources on journaling are free for you to use with students, with kids, or even for yourself. I created them at the beginning of our stay at home orders, but hear from my students that more and more are beginning their journals now. Like me, they are realizing some of the realities that are changing with stay-at-home orders and social distancing will continue far beyond the end of the school year. If you have not already started a journal, join in this campaign to document history for the future.

This tutorial includes examples of journals, as well as a list of suggestions of what to include in your journal (daily events, wins, words of wisdom, quotes from books you are reading, funny things loved ones say, dreams for the future, pictures from outside, the art you are creating).

These journaling tutorials were made for the 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th graders at Baden Academy who are in the Research Fellows program. Several had each expressed a desire for a tutorial the first week we shuttered the school doors and opened the online windows. I did a survey and found most of them wanted an electronic journal. One mentioned she kept starting pen and paper journals but would lose them, or not have them with her when she wanted to write, or she couldn’t print out the screenshots and pictures friends sent to include. These particular kids use Google Suite (Docs, Slides, etc.) in their classrooms and in the media lab. I created tutorials to help them work with the free tools they had. I hope you find them helpful.

Tools to Use to Keep a Journal

This tutorial includes how to use the voice to text tools to narrate your journal and how to copy and past images, screenshots, and your own art into a Google Doc. It also includes a reference to several Learn to Type programs.

More Resources

If your kids are older, I would suggest that now is a great time in their lives to pursue Find Your Passion. At one point in the Find Your Passion Journey, we mention several classics of self-discovery and ask students to look deeper. Now is a great time to read one.

If you or your kids need help coping with the emotional and psychological toll of this global reality, please visit https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/find-help/index.shtml

“People who keep journals have life twice.”

Jessamyn West

Permanent link to this article: https://growageneration.com/2020/04/19/virus-diary-for-kids/

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