For the last two years I have been doing "Personal Yearbooks" with my two granddaughter's classes. The idea comes from Becky Higgens, and she has passed the idea on through her blog. From Becky:
Description
This is an ongoing project designed for students to complete themselves – no matter if they're in public, private, or home school. This will work with children as young as preschool and can even be used for older kids. The end result is a very basic month-by-month look at their journey and growth in a single school year.
Why?
I believe that teaching children to record their personal history is important and should be fun! Highlighting their own handwriting and art and pictures in a format like this can really boost a child's self-esteem. This isn't the type of project that ends up in the garbage. Volunteering to help kids complete this is a great way to get in the classroom with your child and serve your community.
Getting started
Introduce yourself to your child's teacher if they don't already know you. Volunteer to do this Personal Yearbook project with each of the kids in the class on a monthly basis.
Determine ahead of time if you are going to provide all the materials or if you're going to ask for a small donation from the parents to contribute to the project. It could be $2-3 per student, depending on how fancy-schmancy you want to get. I recommend keeping it simple and un-cluttered. (I kept it simple and the cost to me was very minimal.)
Together with the teacher, create a plan of each month's topic/theme/activity so that the "big picture" feels good to both of you. For example, you could focus on a big-deal activity each month (first day of school, holiday performance, Valentines exchange party). Or you could focus on routine activities that paint a picture of everyday life for the students (library, cafeteria, recess).
Gather all supplies based on how many students are in the class.
What you need
Time to pop into your child's class twice a month.
Camera
White cardstock for printing the pages (title page + 2 pages per month of school)
Adhesive (most kids will already have glue sticks at school)
Pen or pencil (if the kids don't already have this at school there's a problem)
Crayons, markers, colored pencils for drawing art (again, they should have this)
Variety of patterned paper (optional)
I have SO enjoyed getting to go into their classrooms every month and get to know the children and work with them on this project. After teaching Kindergarten for 17 years, it's always a treat for me to get to go into a classroom and work with the children. Having it be my granddaughter's classes makes it an extra bonus.
In September I took each child's picture, they made the covers for their books and did the September page:
2 comments:
Oooh... I love this! Great idea. That Becky Higgins comes up with good'uns! And you execute so beautifully, Judy. Great work.
And, GO VANDALS!!! Have a great trip!
What an awesome thing to do for your grandaughters! This is such a great idea!
Wish I could go to the game. GO VANDALS!!!
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