I was able to review three journals from Mandy Lee Journals. I received a child’s book journal, a book journal, and a sermon or lecture journal. All three have a durable clear, plastic cover over the cardstock printed front and back covers. Each has this super neat binding that is similar to spiral binding but instead of one binding, it is individual discs that run through the edge of the journal. This makes it amazingly easy to turn pages.

The outdoor book journal is fifty pages of heavyweight paper. It has foxes, birds, mushrooms, plants, and hedgehogs on the front and back inner covers. The flower-themed ones both have lovely flowers on them and are fifty double pages each. All three are extremely attractive and well made.

The child’s book journal has an outdoor theme cover and a beginning page that has a place for "books I want to read" and "list of favorite books". Then each page is for one book. It has pre-printed headings for you to fill in with book title, author, date, about the book, favorite characters, favorite quotes, meaningful parts, and how I rate the book. I love this setup, especially for my reluctant writer. It is thorough but does not overwhelm him.

The book journal with flowers on the cover is beautiful. It is more open as on each double-page it has book title, author, and date but the rest of the page is lined for writing your own narrative. (two pages are included for each book). It also has a page in the front for "books to read" and "favorite books". This journal is perfect for a child who loves to write!

The lecture/sermon journal also has a gorgeous flower cover. It has a page in the front to list lectures/sermons, speakers, and dates. Then each page is set up to write any notes or narratives about the sermon/lecture. It also has a place at the top of each page to note the speaker, topic, and date. Each includes two pages. It is fifty pages. This is also perfect for a child or adult who loves to write or keep notes!

All three journals are very well made and extremely attractive and easy to use. I have already personally recommended them to several people because of their unique and beautiful design. They would fit perfectly into any homeschool or family! They are very reasonably priced ranging from $6.95-$19.95. Mandy Lee Journals has a wide selection of journals available on Etsy and it’s wonderful to be able to support a small business while at the same time meeting a very specific need with a product you will enjoy keeping as a keepsake!

-Product review by Jenny Underwood, The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine, LLC, June 2020

Disc Bound Journals

Mandy Lee Journals

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https://www.etsy.com/shop/MandyLeeJournals

I was so happy to get the Homeschool Journal and the Book Journal from Mandy Lee Journals to review. These were two great journals that I have fallen in love with!

Both journals are disc bound with a nice thick plastic cover on the front and the back. The pages within both journals are a nice thick cardstock that will hold up to regular use. There is no need to worry about easily ripping or tearing. With the disc binding, you can easily customize the order of the pages within each of these journals.

The Book Journal (for kids) includes a sheet that allows your child to list the books they want to read and a list of their favorite books. Following this sheet of lists, are 25 sheets to write about the books read. These are front and back, so your child would be able to write about 50 books in this journal. The pages have a space for the book title, author, date, about the book, favorite characters and quotes, meaningful parts of the book, and how your child would rate the book. At the end of the journal, there are some blank lined pages and plain white pages. 

The Homeschool Journal has many great components to it! There are five dividing sheets and five-page protectors. Along with these, there are pages for books read, unit studies, field trips, curriculum lists, goals for this year, and many more! This journal can be used for one or more students. I used this for three students, separating some of the sheets between the page dividers with the child’s name listed on them. This became our yearbook for the year.

My son took the book journal. He used this to record the books that he was reading. Instead of making him do book reports, I would have him fill out these pages of the journal. This journal has become his ongoing book report. Each time he picks up a new book, he fills out another page. I love having a different choice for the dreaded book reports for my children. My son loves this journal, and since this journal covers everything a book report would, I am fine with skipping this step and allowing him to fill out these pages instead. When he fills this journal, I plan to get him another. This is a great journal to keep for looking back on past books that he has read.

I took the Homeschool Journal. I would fill out some parts of it, the main parts. I would then sit down with the kids and work either one-on-one with them for goals for the year, some of their favorite memories, books, etc. Other times I would work with all of them to talk about what we learned and some of our favorite memories of the unit studies we worked through. This was a wonderful time to bond with my children. I learned what they liked about things, I learned their goals for themselves and the plans they had.

We loved using these journals. The Homeschool Journal is just that. It is not a planner. We love the idea of filling this out as our Homeschool Yearbook. It is a fantastic way to capture all our memories over the years. I also loved that it had pages for unit studies. Our homeschool is unit study based, so it is fun to keep a memory of each unit study that we do.

If you are looking for a way to journal your homeschool year and the books your child has read, I highly recommend Mandy Lee Disc Bound Journals. These two journals are a huge hit in our homeschool!

-Product review by Amanda Hopkins, The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine, LLC, July 2020