Kindergarten Memory Book

I meant to post this last week, but the laziness of summer has gotten in the way. :) Over the school year I had my kids do one craft each month to collect and make a memory book for the last day of school. For May, we did a writing project where we wrote about our favorite memories from the year. Here is an example from each month from my students! :)

July - On the first day of school, I had my students write their name and draw a picture of themselves. It's a VERY telling assessment on where a kindergarten student is on the first day....and it's amazing to view them at the end of the year and see how far they have come! :)

August - The start of school is mainly focused on getting to know each other and the procedures of the classroom. We talked a lot about each other's names (after reading the book Chrysanthemum) and for homework one night I had the parents fill out a sheet on why they chose their child's name. I then had the kids color a flower and I placed a picture of them in the middle.

September - Since Fall was coming, (hadn't quite reached Texas yet... hah!) in September I had the kids decorate leaves with small pieces of paper. They then got to create their own Fall scene with their leaves.

October - For October, in honor of Halloween, my kids made their own pumpkin person. I asked them to think about what they would look like if they were a human jack-o-lantern, and they thought it was pretty funny.

November - In November we talked about Native Americans and Pilgrims around Thanksgiving. We talked about the lives of Native Americans including the crops they introduced to the Pilgrims including maize. We decorated our own maize with paint!

December - In December we talked about many different winter holidays including Christmas, Hanukkah and Kwanzaa. Since everyone in my class celebrated Christmas we all made our own Christmas trees for the December craft.

January - In January we decorated our own snowman. I drew three circles on each child's paper and they painted over the circles. They then got to draw eyes, mouth, arms and buttons along with adding a hat, nose and scarf.

February - In honor of Valentine's Day we made a multi-colored heart craft. The kids traced hearts of different sizes and colors and glued them together.

March - In March, Spring was coming and the flowers were blooming! We talked about how much we had learned that year and I had each student choose one thing they were really good at and illustrate it on a tulip. This student cracked me up because she is great at SO many things, but she chose, "I am good at being quiet." :)

April - In April, we began our animal unit study and learning about life-cycles. Since the kids were so excited about Easter egg hunts, I let them decorate their own Easter egg after we learned about oviparous animals (animals that lay eggs).

May - As the year was winding down, I had my students write about their year and some of their favorite memories. It was really interesting to see what they liked about school and it was great to see them so excited about what they have learned.

What a wonderful year! I still can't believe it's over....BUT lucky for me, I loop with my kids so I will see them again in a few months. :) 1st grade....here I come!