This article describes how first-grade students create meaningful communication with families and help build the student-teacher-parent relationship through journaling. Journals are a useful tool to bridge school and home. A journal can communicate learning goals, develop scientific vocabulary, and create dialogue through oral and written language. Journaling dialogue offers students additional experiences to improve conceptual understanding. To begin the journaling process, first the children and teacher engage in discussion about learning experiences. Then, together they decide what they would like to share with their families at home. In a guided writing format, the class collaborates to write a note stating the current focus, one or two facts about that topic, and a question to engage the reader of the journal to respond. Each week the class reviews the past week's journal question before choosing a student to read or help the teacher read the responses in his or her journal to the class. This practice helps children realize that someone values what they write. The journaling process keeps growing as children are eager to share discoveries and ideas. Students talk and write about concepts studied at school with the teacher and classmates, practicing academic vocabulary and developing new ideas along the way. Journaling actively involves the child in dialogue about content, cultivates the process of thinking and learning, and allows academic experiences to be shared by parents and children together. Engaging children in written and oral communication about learning experiences helps them to take ownership of their learning. The author concludes that this form of dialogue helps the teacher learn about the students and their families, and promotes a positive educational experience that involves families in a meaningful communication bridge.