I am going to share with you a memory book my colleague Laura shared with me years ago. I know it's probably too late to do this, but it is something worth thinking about for another year.
Step One
Each child picks a special memory from the school year. It's important that students know, once someone says a memory it is already taken. I write the memory on the easel. We pick memories over the course of a few days. We have a lot of discussion of memories from the school year. You could read the book Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge by Mem Fox.
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| Write 21 different memories |
Step Two
I let students make their faces on kids pix for the book. We did make faces in the fall, but I thought it would be nice to see how much they have changed! I was able to get the whole class done in one day. I used Kid Pix, you could use Kerpoof too.
Step Three
I saved face as JPEG and imported into iphoto to crop. Once faces were cropped, I made the cover on Pages. I just had to drop and drag. The cover of their books is above with all the faces and names.
Step Four
Now, I come up with different things to go with that memory. Each child will take home a memory book that has 21 different memories made by them! Sometimes I have the students draw a picture. I may find a photo from the memory.
Below you see a few examples
for the Halloween memory I just put a haunted house project we did in October.
For hat day we drew ourselves.
We made apple trees for apple picking.
In the end all the students have the memory page with their friends face and comment but the next page in the book is created by them!
| Here is an example of a few pages This is the memory page and the next page has the project. |
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What a fabulous idea!!! I love the cover of the Memory Book. I am going to do this next year. Thanks for sharing!!!
ReplyDeleteConnie:)
www.welcometofirstgraderoom5.blogspot.com
I bet the kids and families love this project and keep it forever!
ReplyDelete❀ Tammy
Forever in First
This is so cute! It will definitely be a keeper so they can look back at it later to remember what all happened that year. Love it!
ReplyDeleteLori
Conversations in Literacy
I do a timeline with my daily calendar routine. I like for my students to see the number of days linearly as well as in a grid to see the numerical patterns. So, when a special event occurs, I write a sentence with the date and we also put the number of that day in the school year. Then I tape it below the number on the timeline. At the first of each month, our journal time is taken up with writing about our favorite memory of that month. At first they just dictate and write or even trace their name. Later they copy dictated sentences and we work up to me writing the key words and they construct several sentences. Before Christmas, we just wrote on a small slip of paper that I printed out that says "In September,..." I put together a scrapbook page for each month with either an individual or group picture for the month. The pictures may not match the memory they wrote, but I feel that's OK. This year, after Christmas, I started preparing the page ahead of time and they wrote directly on the page in the space provided. Each child gets a book of their writing from every month and its a great snapshot of their progress as a writer. I can't take credit for this. My daughter's K5 teacher did this and it was a great gift to us.
ReplyDeleteThanks you for sharing I love the idea of connecting it to the calendar with special events! I am going to think of these ideas to use next year! Thanks so much
ReplyDeleteVery creative idea! Thank you so much for sharing.
ReplyDeleteNotJustChild'sPlay
Thank you SO much for this great idea! Just to clarify, what do the individual books look like? So, do the students get a book with their page 1st and then copies of the other students' pages? Sorry for the questions, but I would love to do this project with my class this year! What exactly goes into each book? How do you copy/bind them? THANK YOU!!!
ReplyDeleteSo each child picks a memory. For example let say Mary said Apple picking. Every child makes a picture of apple picking (I get a file folder) so the first page has the comment Mary said (I type that and then the next page has the picture) each child makes their own pictures for their book. IN the end I will have 21 different memories and a picture/project to go with it. I then bind them into a book. I plan on posting a book this week.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for clarifying this! I cannot wait to see your book this week. I LOVE your ideas and find them so useful within my own K classroom!
ReplyDelete