I remember when I was in fifth grade and my favorite elementary school teacher handed me a beautifully bound scrapbook of memories from the year. As I looked through mine, I realized it was all of the pages I'd written throughout the year! We didn't know that our teacher was saving the pages we wrote! Included were memory book pages I had written about our field trips, holidays, memorable events, and what we were learning about in class.
A few years ago, I decided to introduce something similar to my class. My students created memory books that they worked on throughout the entire year. I didn't tell them what the pages were for, but told them to do their very best job. They documented experiences such as their first day of school, highlights of each month, our Fall Festival, their birthdays, and our field trips. I also included directed drawings and other art projects towards the back of the scrapbooks. I began to see students who were struggling with writing become successful and actually enjoying it!
I asked the students to only use crayons or colored pencils on their pages, and we kept that consistent throughout the year. They really wanted to use markers, but I found they were too overpowering, bled through the page, and didn't look as nice as the colored pencils or crayons. As my students finished each page, I collected and organized them inside of the file crate shown below. At the end of the year, it was easy for my parent volunteers to make sure each book was in the proper order so I could quickly bind them with my school's binding machine and pass them out the second to the last day of school.
The students who didn't purchase a school yearbook were able to have their friends sign their memory books on the autograph pages. My students and their parents loved the finished product. They had a treasured keepsake of their memories and growth during our year together. It was easy to manage this year long project because we worked on it a little throughout the year. Memory books are one of my favorite projects to do with my students, and I hope you give them a try too!
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I really like this wonderful scrapbook idea. I also loved reading your experience that you had with these scrapbooks in your childhood. I have just started teaching at Phoenix kindergarten so such ideas are going to be extremely helpful for me.
ReplyDeleteThank you for stopping by! Good luck to you on your journey! It's such an amazing career! :)
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