by Alan Haskvitz

With International Literacy Day just around the corner (Sept. 8), it’s a good time to consider scrapbooking as a source of learning in the classroom.  Using basic construction paper, glue sticks, and old newspapers and magazines, students can create a scrapbook around a theme being studied.  And don’t overlook clips and non-copyrighted photos from the Internet.  Indeed, the scrapbook can be made on the Internet.  For example, students can create a scrapbook of the presidents and even make bookmarks for their scrapbook.

Students need to write a caption for each photo, and they should be encouraged to find flags, transportation, and other items from the time period in question.  It is absolutely vital they write in the scrapbook.  You can even put a minimum on the number of words.  A scrapbook without writing is simply a photo album and not really a good learning tool.  Have students explain the image, where it was from, and how it relates to the subject using who, what, when, where, why, and how as guides when writing the caption.

If you have a small class, have students make a learning yearbook.  Each Friday, they sit in groups and discuss what they learned that week.  Then the group seeks images of what they learned and places them in a group scrapbook.  At the end of the year they inscribe their names in the book and leave it in the classroom library.  

Scrapbooking involves critical thinking, fine motor coordination and the ability to organize.  Some valuable scrapbooking sites follow.  If you know of more, please e-mail them to me by clicking on my name on the home page.

Academic Scrapbooking:  Snapshots of Learning
Justifying scrapbooks

Character Scrapbook Teacher’s Guide
For Language Arts

Digital Scrapbooking
Link site for digital scrapbooks

Digital Scrapbooking
Advanced tips for digital scrapbooks

Dos and Don’ts of Teaching a Scrapbooking for Beginners Class
Beginners Guide

An Earth Science Scrapbook Project as an Alternative Assessment Tool

ESL Lesson Plan: Q and A Scrapbook Project 

How to Create a Class Scrapbook

How to Produce Digital Scrapbooks

More About Scrapbooks
Some history of scrapbooks

Scrapbook Description
Ideas on what should be in a scrapbook

Scrapbooking
More than six hundred videos on how to scrapbook

Scrapbooking in the Classroom 
Links

Scrapbook.com Magazine
Commercial, but good ideas

Teach Your Child How to Make a Scrapbook
Ideas by grade level

Tool for “Scrapbook” Project
A scrapbook forum

Use Transportation to Integrate Lessons
This site has a myriad of links to transportation-oriented lessons with visuals that may not be copyrighted and thus can be printed to make a scrapbook on everything from airplanes to trucks.