I did this the first couple years and not since. I regret that I let it go, but I wanted to share so that the rest of you can do it. I am trying to get going with doing it again. Basically, you just buy a plain 'ole binder from the store. Get fabric and other remnants of things to let the children decorate. I covered the outside with fabric of their chosing and let them pick buttons and patches and other such things to decorate the outside. I have seen others who will make collages from paper and magazines and pictures and such and stick them in the pocket part of the front of the plain binder. Then, throughout the year, take pictures. Save key peices of work they did. I saved some handwriting papers (we used A Reason for Handwriting so it had some pages that were perfect for this) and all the writing papers basically. I had pictures of working in the garden and pictures from every field trip. You can even have your child write short exerpts on what the pictures are about and then you put them in the scrapbook basically. At the end of the year, you will have a whole book of memories of what you did that year. I wish I had done this every year because if I had, I would put them all out at graduation. But I am glad I have what we have and am going to make an effort to do it all again this year and such. I just wanted to share. I know somebody here probably already does this, but thought I would tell you all because I know I love having those "yearbooks."
great! Thanks! I keep plnning to have dd do this but she kept skipping it for other things and so this year I am going to put DS on it!
I have even set things up on the computer to do this, uh once the cord gets here I can get working on it, add photos and everything! Thanks for the reminder!
What a great idea! Now to see if I can find the follow through, I have a very bad habt of starting scrapbooking things and not finishing
Awesome idea! Now to get busy on the organization! Anyone else find it harder since digital cameras came out to actually DEVELOP the pictures? Before I HAD to develop them if I wanted to see them. Then it was just a matter of reprints and all that jazz. Now I just continue to download pictures to my computer and there are SO MANY that I get overwhelmed when I try to decide which ones to print! LOL!
I agree. I don't really do much in the way of printing. Of course, I only have a b&w laser printer. I'd like to get a photo printer but paper is *so* expensive! And I'm lousy at scrapbooking. <sigh> So I put it off until later, figuring I'll print them when I'm ready to scrapbook.
There's another way, if the scrapbooking is not up your alley. I love scrapbooking, but didn't think to do it for these. Have any of you seen the little "School Years" spiral bound books? Inside they have little pockets to put things, and a page to put that year's picture, grade, age, friends, accomplishments, etc. Well, I had two of those for my boys, but when I had my third I couldn't find anymore. Plus, the ones I had were too small! So I took the idea, and made my own 8 1/2 x 11 size template (in Word, I think), one for each grade from K-12. I went to the store and got plastic pockets, and put those in for the papers I keep, and have the kids fill out the front part each year, and sign their name, and we glue a picture to it as well. It's turned out really neat, and it's neat to see how they changed as time went by! My oldest just finished his! I can't believe that he's already done with 12th and going to college this year! I think he was in 5th or so when I switched from the little books over to the big ones! I think I still have the templates. Let me see if I can find them, in case anyone's interested in just seeing what it looks like....
That's just one of the pages. If anyone would like me to e-mail them the pages, pm me and let me know. I think I can e-mail them, then you'd just have to print them out. This link shows some pocket dividers like what I used, only the ones I used didn't have tabs. http://www.keenzo.com/showproduct.asp?M=AVERY_DENNISON_11906&ID=1074910 Also, you can combine the scrapbooking with these pages to make a complete book! I put samples of their work in the pockets. I took pictures of their artwork to sort of scrapbook. We couldn't keep all the art, but we got pics of many of them! I had them sign their name at the bottom of the page. When I first made it up, I forgot about having them sign their names, so I had the whole book set up, and just chose not to add a separate line for their siggy and have to reprint all the pages! BUT, if someone is just starting out, you could add the siggy line in THEN print them out if you want! Just ideas, since I agree that it's great to have a yearbook of some kind for each child. Sometimes it's a lot of work, but, especially now that my oldest is heading to college, and his book is full, I see how worth it it was---lots of great memories!
