Scrapbooks

Scrapbooks are something my students look forward to making all year.  In years past, we would make one page every month.  However, this year, I decided to wait until the end of the year and put the whole thing together then.  Last week, I ordered over 500 pictures of our entire school year...pictures of field trips, holiday parties, working around the classroom, and any other special moments.  I divided the pictures up by student and stored them in baggies.  The kids got such a kick out of looking through all the photos of themselves!  This is a super motivating activity to encourage speech from my students....they love to talk about each picture, the event going on, who they are with, etc.

We started by making our covers and back pages.  To make the covers, my students found the letters of their names on stickers and put them in order.  Then, we glued on a little cover design that I made.

To make the backs, we glued on a message from the teachers and had all the kids sign their names.

Next, the kids starting arranging the pictures and captions on the paper.  Once they showed a teacher and got the OK, they were able to start gluing on the pictures.  I like to buy scrapbook paper from the dollar spot at Target.  They usually sell 8-10 sheets for $1.  I collect all the different seasonal pages over the course of the year, so by the time we make our books, we have quite the selection.  

Now, all I have left to do is laminate and bind them into books in time to send them home after our end of year celebration next week!  This is definitely a labor intense project for me as a teacher, but my kids love these books so much, that it makes it worth it.  I also usually make a book for our classroom to keep around for the kids to look at during break time.