TAKING SCRAPBOOKING INTO THE CLASSROOM

By Sheri Stukel, Creator, ScrapandLearn.com

Okay, ladies, let’s talk. We are guilty. We are guilty of keeping scrapbooking to our adult selves. It’s been our reason for NOT being with the kids – our reason for sneaking off with other adults for some craft time of our own. While our children are being put to bed by Daddy, we are at gatherings, cutting and pasting away and loving every minute of it.  Now, I’m not here to take that away, by any means. We need our time, and scrapbooking gives us a great excuse not to feel bad about it – after all, we’re making stuff to share with them! But, there is a way to incorporate scrapbooking into their studies – yes, that’s right, the fun of scrapbooking can be brought into the classroom and can end up making learning a blast. In this article, I will give you the steps to take to make that possible using ScrapandLearn.com Educational Scrapbook Kits.

 ScrapandLearn.com Educational Kits contain two very special components needed to make your  educational scrapbooking experience successful.  The first is a ScrapandLearn.com Resource List.

ScrapandLearn.com Pirates! Resource List

This is a very carefully chosen list of books, movies and internet sites all pertaining to the chosen subject (upcoming subjects include Birds, Shakespeare, Founding Fathers, Dogs, Armchair Traveler and more). Each book, movie and website has been reviewed for educational value and entertainment value and has been “graded” accordingly.  Books are conveniently divided by age group. The first step for your educational scrapbook experience will be to gather the resources you feel will best suit your students. Please, don’t ignore the historical novels! While your students will need the non-fiction books to fill in the facts for their scrapbooks, the historical novels will get the knowledge into their hearts and really make them feel as if they’ve “lived the subject.” By the way, this resource list is currently available for free download (normally $4.95 to order) at the www.ScrapandLearn.com website.

The next very important component is a set of ScrapandLearn.com Art Cards.

These cards break down the general subject into more specific topics. For instance, while you might be overwhelmed with trying to scrapbook the general subject of pirates, doing a scrapbook page of each of 12 infamous pirates is much more easily attainable.

Now you can move on to the next step:

Gather your papers, embellishments and supplies. Each ScrapandLearn.com Kit includes beautiful coordinating papers and embellishments. To make your scrapbooking kit even more personal, you can also go online to some of the suggested websites and print off documents, maps and pictures.

Add these to your basic scrapbooking supplies. Honestly, all you really need are a pair of scissors, a notebook and some glue. But, kids appreciate the ease and fun of using paper cutters and tape runners as much as we do. Glitter, stick-on letters, stencils, markers… they all add to the fun and the finished product. The ScrapandLearn.com website has kid-tested quality scrapbooking products and tools available, should you need some.

If you like, you can start by having your students decorate the cover.

A Birds Scrapbook Cover done by a 12 Year Old
using her ScrapandLearn.com Birds! Kit (coming in August)

Research, Journal and Decorate. Now, have them research their subjects and take notes from those wonderful books you’ve provided them with.  Then, they can journal into a page in their notebooks and decorate with the papers and embellishments. If you have a reluctant reader or writer (or one that’s simply too young) you can absolutely read aloud to them as they decorate and then have them narrate back what you’ve read while you write down what they say. At this point you may be hit with a strong urge to straighten out crooked papers, correct their writing, make it just a little prettier… I say RESIST!! Those are the things that make it truly his and part of what you will cherish later.

Scrapbook pages done by a 12 year old…

and a 9 year old.

So, there you have it. A scrapbook they can brag on and look back on even when they have little ones of their own.