Creating School Scrapbooks

Posted by Debra | 0 comments

Getting our family photo albums caught up to date is my annual summer project.  I have far more scrapbooks than I ever intended, but some of the ones I’m most grateful for are the school albums I’ve created for each of my boys.

When my first son and I began doing intentional learning activities at home, I snapped some photos of what we did and as our activity time turned into full-fledged homeschooling I determined to keep a separate photo album for these activities.  I’m glad I did this for a few reasons.

First, because we were fairly transient I didn’t know what state we’d end up living in and what those homeschooling requirements would be.  Keeping a brief photo album of our schooling at home could become part of a “portfolio” if I were ever asked to submit one.

Second, I wanted some visual cues for my kids to look back and remember what we did together.  Much as I would love to laud that homeschoolers have superior memory retention, I know that they won’t remember everything.  So having a few snapshots of projects and field trips is good for their distractive memory banks.

Finally, I love looking back and seeing their progress and so do they.  When he was in second grade, I noted that my oldest disliked writing, but now he can pound out an essay in no time.   My middle son finished his math curriculum mid-year in Kindergarten and so I bumped him into First Grade.  Knowing this encourages him when his math-esteem feels bogged down solving equations.  These notes and others like them are in their school scrapbooks and they can look at them anytime they want.

If you want to begin a school scrapbook for your own family, here are a few ideas to get you started and keep you from feeling overwhelmed.

• You don’t have to document or photograph everything you do.  Just get a few highlights during your year.  If you do have a memory or experience that you didn’t get a picture of you can adhere a little journal entry to remember it by. My boys’ albums only have 6 – 10 page layouts per school year.
• Rather than make a scrapbook page for every unit or field trip, group like things together on a double-page layout. With pages titled, “Field Trips We Took,” “Books We Read This Year,” or “Co-op Classes We Enjoyed” you’ll record a lot of things in just a little amount of time and space.
• Document your bulky projects with photos.  I make a two-page layout each year entitled “Scenes from _____ Grade” and include a few shots of projects, costumes, and recipes we completed.  This allows me to keep just the photo and disassemble or dispose of the actual project after a time.
• At the end of the year, highlight their “likes” and “dislikes” that surfaced during your studies.  Noting their preferences accentuates their beautiful differences and strengths and after a few years it may help you connect the dots toward understanding their learning style.
• Let your artsy kids make the photo albums.  Their insights into their education may be eye-opening.  And the scrapbook itself can be a great school project.

Enjoy these years with your kids but don’t forget to document your work and accomplishments.  Wouldn’t it be nice to have something appealing to show friends when they ask, “So, what does your day actually look like?”  And don’t forget, an attractive school scrapbook will be a treasured graduation gift for your student at the end of their homeschooling journey…which is probably coming sooner than you think.

Debra Anderson has three sons ages 11 and younger. Her passions are education, mentoring, her husband, writing, church ministry and missional living — not in that order. She has her seminary Masters degree in Christian Education, is married to her pastor-husband of 16 years, and resides in their newish home in Denver, CO. In spite of moves between four different states, she has always home educated her boys — even on the hard days. She maintains a blog at www.emergent-homeschool.blogspot.com.