Give students a memorable end-of-year gift that won’t break the bank and works on writing, art, and leisure skills throughout the year! But in order to successfully execute this gift, you’ll need to start at the beginning of the year (taking pictures, that is).

Picture Permission/Policy/Disclaimer

As always, before taking pictures of your students, find out what your school’s policy is on taking photos of students and what device(s) you use to take them. You most likely should be required to get permission from each parent. If you have really strict rules – maybe you can try and convince admin by letting them know these photos will be taken on a school device (eg. tablet), and these photos will not be published anywhere – they are going straight home to the student and their family. Also consider how the photos will be printed and include this in your permission slip – whether the photos are being printed on a school printer, or if you are uploading the images to a print station at the local pharmacy/store (I believe these machines don’t store the images after printing but double-check with the store).

Planning

The best part about this activity is it doesn’t really require too much planning! (Heck yes!) All you really have to do is remember to take photos of all of the fun learning opportunities you encounter throughout the year! Depending on your students – you yourself or your paras might take the photos, or it’s even fun to have the student practice their photography skills and take photos!

Supplies

Some basic supplies I primarily use are construction paper, stickers, markers/coloring pencils, scissors, and glue. You will also need a scrapbook to hold all of the photos in (I use a binder to keep costs low). Dollar Tree usually has a variety of cute binders. Stickers help students with fine motor disabilities participate by being able to decorate and write headings on their pages. If you have access to stamps, this is another great way to include your students with fine motor disabilities in the design process.

The number one question I get is HOW DO I AFFORD ALL OF THESE SUPPLIES? Scrapbooking can be quite expensive when all of the supplies add up, but there are ways to do this on a low budget! If you are allowed – you can always ask parents and colleagues for donations. I can’t tell you how many people have donated supplies and told me “I used to be into scrapbooking but now this all has been sitting around taking up space in my room for years, I’m glad it’s getting a good use”. Here are some suggestions:

Donations

Dollar stores

Sales/Clearance section at craft stores

Crowdfund for your classroom) (Donors Choose, Go Fund Me…etc)

Garage sales

Goodwill thrift stores

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What’s In the Scrapbooks?

PHOTOS– A majority of the photos I try and take of students is of special events such as the first day of school or maybe the Jog-a-thon, huge accomplishments, community outings & field trips, cooking lessons, and students working on some life skills they enjoy (eg. classroom jobs, off campus work experience…etc).

WRITING- Once the student pastes their photo onto a page they will put a title/headline with letter stickers/stamps, or write a sentence/paragraph about the photo depending on what level your students are at!

ART- Students can decorate their pages by drawing/coloring, stamping, or putting stickers on each page.

WORK SAMPLES- Throughout the year, I have students file their work into a crate. At the end of the year (I will have them go through and pick some of their favorite pieces of work that they want to include)

END OF YEAR REFLECTION- To wrap up the scrapbook, I like to dedicate a page or two to include accomplishments, improvements, and memories that students loved the most.

Grab the template and visuals for this activity:

How Often Do You Scrapbook?

The second most common question I get on this activity is how often we do this activity. It’s all going to depend on your students. This can be a weekly/every other week activity, or it can be as little as an end-of-year/last week of school activity you spend a few hours on.

Benefits

Aside from being an activity that requires very little planning, students have the opportunity to have fun while working on basic academic skills of writing, students have the opportunity to practice rec & leisure skills of photography and art. This is an end-of-year gift that packs a big bang without breaking the bank, and it is something that not only parents appreciate, but student love to look at after they have left your classroom for years to come!

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Thanks for reading!