Decide what kind of journals to use based on budget and personal preference. Consider that spiral-bound notebooks are less expensive than composition books, but not as sturdy. Determine how long the journal must last. Review online templates for short-term, reproducible journals. If using commercial notebooks, plan on having students number the pages. Numbering makes it easier for student and teacher alike when keeping track of entries. Label each notebook with "Math Journal," the classroom number and its owner's name.
Gather students on the carpet for a discussion of their past experiences with math journals. Ask them what it means to write about math. Introduce class expectations about how to take care of journals and what to write in them. Make sure that students understand these notebooks are to be used only for math.
Talk about some of the ways in which the class will use the journals. These may include a "daily math message" such as a word problem, notes about important words and ideas or a student's end-of-class summary about what he learned. Math educator Marilyn Burns talks at her Math Solutions website about observing a second grade class in which the teacher told students to summarize their learning as if they were explaining it to their parents.
Give the students a problem to solve. Try the "think, write, pair, share" process suggested by the MathWire website as well as Marilyn Burns. Let students share with a partner after they journal and before holding a whole-class discussion of the problem.
Select a few journals to real aloud to the whole class without announcing which students wrote them, similar to the teacher mentioned in Step 3. Incorporate the teacher's technique of asking the class for feedback about whether a journal entry helped them 'see' what the author had done." Ask questions about what helped students understand the author's answer or what else they need to know.
Give students different strategies for expressing themselves. Consider MathWire's ideas, such as drawing idea webs, making and labeling pictures and writing about real-life situations that could be related to a problem. Remember that the way a student responds to a single problem, such as "Explain 2 x 4 = 8," can provide lots of valuable assessment information. Celebrate if the journal entry is a spider labeled as having a set of four legs on either side of its body.