Kid quote journal: paper book or app?
If you’re choosing a kid quote journal, the real choice is between a paper book, such as My Quotable Kid or any “one line a day” journal, and an app on your phone. Both work. They fail in different places, and plenty of families end up using both.
This page goes through what each one does well and where it runs out. If you’re new to the idea, start with how to keep a kid quote journal. Daysake is an app, so we’re not neutral, but we’ll say what paper does better.
“My toes got old.”
What a quote journal needs
Whatever you pick, three things make a quote worth reading back in ten years:
- The exact words. The mispronounced word and the odd logic are the point. Don’t tidy them up.
- The date. Even the month is enough.
- The age. “2 years 3 months” tells you where your child was. It’s also the step most people drop, because it means doing the math every time.
A line of context helps too: “At bath time,” “After Grandpa left.” Judge any journal by how easily it lets you write those four things in a few seconds.
Paper journals
What they do well. A paper book is something you can hold and hand over. It makes a good gift, it needs no charging, and nobody’s phone is involved. Writing by hand is slow in a nice way, and your handwriting becomes part of the keepsake. Books built for kid quotes, like My Quotable Kid, often give you a page layout so you don’t have to design anything.
Where they run out.
- One book, one place. It’s on the shelf when the best line happens in the car.
- One copy. If it’s lost or spilled on, that’s that.
- Hard to search. Finding the line about the moon means flipping pages.
- Two parents, one book. It works if you pass it back and forth. It gets patchy when only one of you remembers to write.
- The age math is yours.
A phone app
What it adds. It’s with you when the line happens, so you can write it in a few seconds and put the phone away. In Daysake, the date and your child’s age go on by themselves, even for a day you remember later. Your partner joins with their own account and writes in the same notebook, with no shared password. You can download everything as one PDF with the date and age on every page, and print it wherever you like.
What it costs you. It’s one more thing on your phone, and a screen isn’t a gift you can wrap. Some people just prefer pen and paper.
Using both
A lot of families jot the line in an app on the day, then print the PDF and tuck it into a paper book at the end of the year. You get the quick capture and the thing to hold, and the paper copy isn’t your only copy.
If you want paper only, a plain sheet works fine. The free printable below has a line for the date, the age, the exact words, and what was going on.
Questions to ask before you pick
- Who can see it? A paper book is as private as your shelf. For an app, check whether it’s public by default. In Daysake it’s never public, and only the people you invite can see the notebook.
- Can you get everything out? Ask this of any app. Daysake’s PDF download is free, and it’s free to write and read your pages, too.
- Will two parents actually write in it? Pick the one the second parent will really open.
- Is the age added for you? If not, add a line for it every time.
- Is it quick enough for a bad day? One line should count. A journal that needs a full page will stay empty.
“Twenty. Grandma is a hundred.”
Free printable
A one-page quote log with 16 entries: date, age, their exact words, and where you were. Print a few and keep the sheets in a folder, or copy the layout into a notebook. No sign-up.
- US Letter PDF (US and Canada)
- A4 PDF (UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand)
Daysake is a free, private notebook for the things your kid says. Write one line, and the date and age are added for you.