Kath's Homemade Homeschool Yearbooks

In the very first homeschool catalogue that I read there was a product for homeschool yearbooks, and I had the thought that this was something I could put together myself with a little effort and very little money. Five years later we have four homeschool yearbooks which are looked at often with amusement, and at times when we doubt that homeschooling is working they are great to look at and reflect just how well homeschooling has worked for us.

The concept of yearbooks has come from America where they are used in a school setting, but we have adapted the idea and personalised it a lot more. Each child has their own yearbook that includes only things that they like and have during the year. We make the yearbook with a A4 folder with clear plastic pocket pages. In our family each child has their own colour to make identification easier.

Here is a list of things that could be included:

- A title page: Name, year, and a current photo.

- A favourites page: favourite book, movie, song, tv program, colour, food, holiday, pet, subject to learn, etc.

- Book lists, one for family reading and a personal reading list.

- Any creative writing

- Any photo's and/or writing on field trips, homeschool get-togethers, craft activities, or sports, etc.

- Collections that can be laid flat. i.e.. leaves, feathers, pressed flower, seeds, etc.

- Photocopies of small hands. (It is so amazing how quickly our little ones grow up!)- Full body outline of your small child, folded up.

- Interesting questions: What do I want to be when I grow up? What am I good at? If I could change anything what would it be? If I was prime minister of New Zealand what would I do? My dream house would have?

- Any certificates: swimming, other sports, library reading programs, etc.

- Book reports.

- Written science experiments

- Drawings of maps

- Comparisons of work between the start of the year and at the end of the year for subjects such as handwriting and maths. (This has been great encouragement for our 9 year old son. The changes in handwriting over each year are spectacular to say the least, but on a daily basis it can be impossible to see any improvements.)

- A curriculum overview. This is done for our family's benefit, not for any ERO reviewer ever to lay their eyes upon! However, it is wonderful to pull out to show any doubting family and friends, that yes, our child does learn at home.

It may sound like a lot of work to organise everything, but in reality it's very easy. As your child does a good piece of work, or does a report on a field trip, and so on, simply file the work away into the yearbook for later. Over the month of December the work is sorted out, new pages made up (like the favourites) and it is decorated. How creative you make them is entirely over to you (or your child if he/she is putting it together). I have purchased The Lettering Book by Noelene Morris (Scholastic $13.95) so our headings may look a bit better this year. The favourites page is usually the most decorated page, with glitter borders and a gold star sticker next to each favourite. You could also add stamps, artwork (own or photocopied), and a must of course, is lots of photo's.

Already our homeschool yearbooks are read by their owners with much amusement of what they were once like. Imagine how much more they will be enjoyed in the years to come!

Click here to go back to my homeschooling page. Click on the letter box below to email me.

You are Visitor Number