Completed Personal Yearbooks For 2014-2015

Personal yearbooks are one of my favorite projects. I create a personal yearbook for each student in my children’s classes. The front page of the personal yearbook contains a photo of the student at the beginning of the school year and a photo of the student at the end of the school year. I love to see how they’ve grown.

Each month, I took a photo of each student at school. The students in my daughter’s second grade class wrote about their photo in their own words. I interviewed each of the kids in my son’s kindergarten class and wrote down what they said. The last page of the personal yearbook contains a photo of the student with their teacher and a handwritten note from the teacher. This year I completed 40 personal yearbooks – 20 for each class. The personal yearbooks were given to the moms at the Mother’s Day breakfasts at school.

I loved seeing all the moms look through the personal yearbooks with their kids. My son had seen his pages throughout the year but he hadn’t seen them all put together. After we looked through the album together, he said, “I really wish we could keep this mom.” I was only too happy to tell him that we were taking it home!

Here’s a quick glance inside my children’s personal yearbooks.

My son’s book contained pages for school events, everyday activities and field trips. Interviewing the kindergartners was such a joy. They were so sweet and I never knew what they are going to say.

My daughter’s teacher assigned project that were done at home each month. Most of the pages in Kara’s book are about those monthly projects. You can see that she wrote a lot because she knows that is what her scrapbooking mom expects. The other students in her class started out the year writing brief descriptions until specific questions were provided for them to answer.

The personal yearbooks are definitely a labor of love. The time involved for each month totaled several hours for each class but it is a wonderful feeling to know that these children will have these memories for the rest of their lives.

I hope to continue with the personal yearbook project next year!

2013 - 2014 Personal Yearbooks

My son graduated from preschool this week. He had a great year and is really looking forward to going to kindergarten. I worked with Colin’s class during the school year on individual personal yearbooks for each of the 13 students. I got the original idea from the awesome Becky Higgins. The front cover has a photo of the student from the beginning of the year in August and one taken just last week in May. The students also wrote their name in August and May. Each month I took a photo of each student doing an activity. I interviewed them and had them create a drawing of their activity.

In March, Colin’s class made terrariums while studying the water cycle. I took photos of them putting together the terrariums. Colin drew a picture of his terrarium which was made up of two plastic cocktail glasses taped together with electrical tape.

In April, the kids made s’mores in class. I waited until they had all eaten at least half of their s’mores before I started taking photos. All the kids were a mess! Colin was no exception. These were probably my favorite pictures all year. I love how Colin is sitting with his feet up roasting a marshmallow in his drawing. He is such a mellow and laid back child. 

May was a short month at school so I didn’t do a layout with the kids. I asked Colin’s teacher to write a note to each student for the back cover. I took a photo of each student in their cap and gown with the teacher and added it to the note page. I think this is a great way to end the book.

If you are interested in seeing more pages from this year, you can see them here.

After graduation, Colin’s teacher had the personal yearbooks at each student’s seat with this note on the cover.

When I said goodbye to Colin’s teacher, she told me that she put the note on books so that the parents would know that I made them. She also expressed her gratitude for me taking the time to take the pictures, interview the students, help them create their drawings and put together the books. Some of the parents thanked me at graduation and I received an email and a few Facebook messages with thanks too.

The gratitude from Colin’s teachers and the other parents was wonderful because doing these personal yearbooks for all 13 students in Colin’s class was difficult and time consuming. There was always one, two or more students who were absent on the day I came to take pictures or work on the pages with the students. I ended up spending a lot more time at school than two mornings a month. I have a few ideas on how to make this easier and cheaper for me next school year when I hope to do the personal yearbooks for Colin’s kindergarten class and my daughter’s second grade class. I will share those ideas with you in August!

Door of Hearts Valentine's Day Surprise

 

My friend shared about putting a heart on someone’s door every day starting on February 1st. I intended to do that for my kids but I was sick in bed at the beginning of February so it didn’t happen. Then it occurred to me that the kids could do something similar for their dad for Valentine’s Day. We created our door of hearts after school on Valentine’s Day.

Supplies:
14 – 8.5×11 pieces of colored cardstock
1 – 7.5×10 piece of white cardstock for each child
assorted heart or Valentine’s Day stickers
scissors
markers
glue stick
Scotch tape

Directions:
1. Draw a heart that takes up most of an 8.5×11 inch piece of paper and then cut it out. We made 12 of these (6 for each child). I thought about using my Silhouette or my Cricut to cut these out ahead of time but I think that part of the fun is letting the kids cut the hearts out themselves.

2. Write what you love about the person on the heart. My 6 year old wrote out her sentences on scratch paper so I could proofread it before she wrote it on her hearts. My 4 year old dictated what he wanted to write on the heart and then I just let him sign Love and his name.

3. Have the kids draw their dad on a sheet of white cardstock. I asked the kids to make the drawing of their dad look as lifelike as possible. Here are the drawings.

4. Adhere the white cardstock to a piece of colored cardstock.

5. Decorate the hearts and drawings with heart or Valentine’s Day stickers. Here are 4 of my favorite completed hearts.

6. Put tape on the back of the hearts and the drawings.

7. Place the hearts and the drawings on the door. The kids really liked deciding where everything was placed.

My husband was so surprised when he got home from work! He loved the hearts and the kids were so proud when he read each of the hearts out loud.

This project could also be used for an anniversary, Father’s Day, Mother’s Day or birthday. I don’t think this is the last time we will see something like his at my house!

Personal Yearbooks 2013 - 2014

I have created personal yearbooks for each child in my daughter’s class for the past two years. This year, Kara’s teacher is taking care of her class but I will be creating personal yearbooks for Colin’s pre-K class.

What is a personal yearbook?

A personal yearbook is a scrapbook of  sorts with monthly layouts. Each layout includes a photo of the student, journaling about the photo and the student’s drawing. The original idea came from Becky Higgins. I created the pages I use in Adobe Illustrator and are different than Becky’s pages.

Supplies

For each student:

• one three prong folder  – I use clear ones from Staples. They are sold individually in the report cover section of the store. They also come in many different colors.
• white cardstock – The number per student varies depending on the number of school year months. I include a cover page, a two page layout for 9 months and a note from the teacher page for a total of 20 pages. I like to use cardstock because it is heavier and will endure more abuse through the years but you could also use regular paper to cut down on cost.
• page protectors – This number varies based on the number of pages in the book. Take the cardstock count, divide by 2 and round up by 1 if there is an uneven number of pages.
• scrapbook paper – I cut scrapbook paper strips each month that coordinates with the theme of the month. Most of the paper I use comes from my stash but you can also shop sales at your local craft store to keep down the cost.

I estimate that my cost is about $5 per student. That includes all supplies and photo developing. At the start of each year, I put all the page protectors in the folders at one time. This saves time throughout the year.

Front Page

The front page gives a summary of the school year. These are the front pages from this year and the past two years.

There is room for two photos and two signatures – from the beginning and end of the school year. The school name, grade, teacher and school year is also included.

Monthly Pages

Each month has  a two page layout.

The left page has a photo of each student and journaling about the photo. The right page is a drawing the student creates related to the photo on the left page. Underneath the drawing is my handwritten note with details about the drawing. Older students can write their own notes.

Monthly Actions

1. Contact the teacher and figure out when you will take photos.
2. Take the photos and have them printed.
3. Print out the paper for the students to draw on. Make sure you have one or two extra just in case someone wants to start over.
4. Cut up the scrapbook paper strips for the pages.
5. Return to the class to interview students and work with them on their drawings. Take notes for the journaling of the photo and of what the students drew.
6. Print the photo pages with typed or handwritten journaling on the paper. Also include details on what each student drew.
7. Glue the scrapbook paper to the pages.
8. Add the pages to the pre-assembled yearbooks.

Tips

• I keep the personal yearbooks ordered by first name so books are easy to organize when it comes time to insert pages.
• The first month or two will be a little stressful as the kids get used to working with you and you with them. After that you will be surprised  how quickly it goes!
• I create my questions for the students ahead of time and ask them all the same questions. You will be surprised by some of the cute/silly answers you will get.
• I always bring the photos to the interviews because it helps the students remember what you are asking them about.

This is a great way to get to know the students in your child’s class. You can see past posts about personal yearbooks here.

Captain America Tie Dye Shirts

My friend showed me a picture of a Captain America tie dye shirt she found online and I thought it would be fun to make those with my kids for the 4th of July. This project is time consuming but I think you’ll agree that the finished product is worth it!

{ Disclosure: There are affiliate links in this post}

The kids and I set out on our first ever tie dye adventure by following the directions for the shirt from I Love To Create. My son’s shirt is boy’s size 4/5 and my daughter’s shirt is girl’s size 6/6x.

Supplies for 1 shirt:

• white t-shirt
• Tulip one-step dye in blue  (NOTE: the 0.16 oz bottle of dye was just enough for two kid sized shirts)
• Tulip tie-dye kit in red (NOTE: I only used about 1/4 of the red dye for two kid sized shirts)
• 4 zip ties
• white fabric paint
• Cricut or star stencil
• 12 x 12 inch cardboard (not pictured)
• scissors (not pictured)
• pencil (not picture)
• non-permanent adhesive (not pictured)

Instructions:

1. Wash the shirt first. We started the project later in the evening and we had to rush the dye job before bed time because I forgot that I had to wash the shirts first.

2. The color pattern for the shirt from the inside of the design is blue, red, white, red, blue so there are 4 different regions. I am a former engineer so I like things to be as exact as possible. Instead of eye balling it, I found 4 circular objects that could be traced on the shirt.

I used a CD, a 6 inch plate, an 8 inch plate and a 10 inch plate. For an adult sized shirt you would need larger plates. We traced the circular items from largest to smallest onto the shirt. Doing it in that order makes it easier to keep all the circles centered. The kids liked the tracing part and I let each child trace their own shirt.

3. Next I started in the middle of the circle and gathered it upwards. My cute assistants tied the zip ties along the bottom of the pencil lines. (The dye comes with rubber bands but I thought that zip ties would hold tighter.) Do this 4 times – once for each circle.

Next, wet the shirt with water from the sink and wring it out. At this point I snipped off the excess portion of the ties. In retrospect I think I should have left them the way they were because it would have helped in the dying process.

Going into this project I fully intended to have my kids put the dye on the shirt but after reading all the warnings on the boxes I decided that it was safer for me to do this step. I filled the dye bottles with water as directed. I did the red dye first and then the blue dye. Remember to keep the shirt as level as possible so the dye doesn’t run in between the different tied off sections of the shirt.

This is what my shirts looked like after the dye was applied. I placed them on plastic wrap on my counter.  At this point I was really worried about how dark the blue color was and about how my dye was running together but it all turned out okay. I covered the shirts with plastic wrap so they wouldn’t dry out.

4. In the morning I ran the shirts under water in the sink until the water ran clear. I squeezed each section gently as I did this. This caused the dye to run together a little more and I was afraid that I was going to fail at my first attempt at these shirts. I was pleasantly surprised when I cut off the ties and the shirts looked pretty good!

5. I washed both shirts in hot water with a little detergent and dried them in the dryer. Next I measured the diameter of the blue circle in the middle. The points of the star are just touch the outside of the blue circle. The measurement was 3.75 inches. I used my Cricut to cut a star (Stand and Salute cartridge) from the middle of a 12×12 piece of thin cardboard. My settings for the Cricut was slow speed, high pressure, blackout and real dial size. (In the original directions, freezer paper was used but I didn’t have any so this was my work around.)

Before painting, I put plastic wrap inside the shirt so the paint would not leak through to the backside of the shirt. I placed the star where I wanted it in the middle of my shirt and then positioned the cardboard mask so that the star cutout fit. The cardboard is held in place by non-permanent adhesive.

I then removed the cutout and we painted. With Kara’s shirt I used the spray texture paint and it came out really thick. With Colin’s shirt, we used white acrylic paint and I liked that much better. I used two coats of acrylic paint with one hour of drying in between. Update: All the white acrylic paint washed off the shirt so I am going to redo it with the spray texture paint that I used on Kara’s shirt. The kids love our finished shirts and so do I!

I think I might make myself one of these Captain America tie dye shirts when the next Captain America movie comes out.

Personal Yearbooks 2012-2013

Last Friday I attended the Mother’s Day tea in Kara’s kindergarten class. Kara greeted me at the door and gave me a handmade bouquet of paper flowers.

 

me and my sweet girl at the Mother’s Day tea

During the Mother’s Day tea, Kara’s teacher passed out the personal yearbooks that I had created for each child to each mom. I got the idea for the personal yearbooks from Becky Higgins years ago.

all 18 personal yearbooks that I completed this school year

The personal yearbooks were a surprise for both the kids and the parents. The front page of each book had an individual photo of the each child in August and one in May. Each child also wrote their first name underneath the photos in August and May. It was fun to see how the handwriting changed over the year.

Kara’s front page

The yearbooks contained a page for each month of the school year. Monthly pages had an individual photo of the student and journaling about the photo. I wrote the journaling based on interviews that I conducted monthly.

Kara’s November page

The last page was a photo of the student and the teacher with a handwritten note from the teacher. Each page was printed on white cardstock and had a 2 inch piece of scrapbook paper along the top of the page.

I estimate that it took me about 5 – 6 hours to complete the pages for these 18 personal yearbooks each month. This included taking/editing/printing the photos as well as interviewing and printing out the pages with the journaling. When I saw how much the moms and the kids enjoyed looking at the personal yearbooks I knew that all my efforts were definitely worth it. There were even some heartfelt thank yous and tears from the other moms.

I am looking forward to doing the personal yearbooks again next year for BOTH of my children’s classes.