School Memories

1. Remembering the school year is a cinch with this easy-to-make autograph and memory book. Using Crayola® Scissors, students cut posterboard for both the back and front covers of their memory books. With Crayola Color Sticks or Colored Pencils, students design their covers. Encourage imaginative play with the medium and colors. Invite students to consider including their school's logo or mascot on the covers, as well as the school's colors.
2. Students can use an eraser to remove some color. Then add new details to their designs. Words such as autographs, the school name, or grade level stand out SO easily.
3. To incorporate pages, have students fold several pieces of paper together to fit inside the covers. Cut along the fold lines to create pages. Insert them inside the cover. Punch holes through all of the pages and tie them together using ribbon or string.
4. As significant events occur during the school year, encourage students to illustrate and/or write in their memory books.

LA: Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grade level topics and texts, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly.

LA: Write routinely over extended time frames (time for research, reflection, and revision) and shorter time frames (a single sitting or a day or two) for a range of discipline-specific tasks, purposes, and audiences.

MATH: Solve real-world and mathematical problems involving area, surface area, and volume.

MATH: Convert like measurement units within a given measurement system.

VA: Use different media, techniques, and processes to communicate ideas, experiences, and stories.

VA: Use visual structures of art to communicate ideas.

VA: Select and use subject matter, symbols, and ideas to communicate meaning.

At the opening of the school year, students brainstorm how to create these booklets and what events they might like to memorialize in them. When initially creating the structure of the booklet, remind students that additional pages may need to be added as the year unfolds. Plan ahead!

Create a written list of events that students want to document. Display this list in a visible stop in the classroom for easy reference.

This booklet format can easily be adapted to similar books for poetry, short stories, sketchbooks, etc. Have students determine an additional booklet that they want and create it. Keep this one in a safe place in their desks. Students can add to the booklet as needed without interfering with other class activities.