DIY Yearbook!

We had an amazing year this year and I wanted my little Rosalinda to have something to remind her of all the wonderful things we did and people we spent time with this year.

This project had a lot of headaches, but I'm hoping it is because I was newbie and not because it is the nature of the product.

When I decided to do a showcase, I figured it would help to have a theme to help inspire the invite and yearbook.  I played with the idea of peacocks, owls, monsters, stars, dots, and a lot more.  I found an invite using monster graphics on walgreens.com or walmart.com, which was my original plan.  I wanted to be able to order nice quality, but economical invites that I could hand and mail out.  Yeah, didn't happen.  I couldn't change the "birthday" wording and couldn't find any other pre-made invites that would work.

So I ended up making my own and ordering them as photos from Walgreens.com.  It took two orders due to their network resizing it and cutting off part of the invite, but we finally got it done.

I made this invite in Microsoft Publisher, saved it as a jpg, and loaded it into my walgreens.com account.

Sticking with this theme I went to work on her yearbook, about six weeks before the showcase.  I made it all in publisher.  Originally I looked at picture books, like Walgreens and Shutterfly, but for the number of pages that I wanted, I couldn't find anything in my budget.  

I finally printed it out on my Epson printer (which did take A LOT of ink because I wanted it to be high quality) front and back on cardstock.  I decided to take it to our local education store to be laminated and bound, but that was a fiasco.  Their laminater completely ruined my pages and the laminate didn't stick to the page, creating huge bubbles.  The bubbles made the images and words almost impossible to make out.  It wasn't good. :(  However, the owner of the educational supply store is amazing!  She had me send her the files and she printed them herself, so that I didn't have to pay another $20 in ink, took it to an office supply store and had it laminated in really think laminate and bound.  I didn't pay a cent!  She took great care of us!

Here are my pages, so you can see how I organized it all.

Cover

Table of Contents

All the places we did school this year: library, in a tent, on the porch swing, in a hospital waiting room,
and other fun places!

My family was listed as the faculty...I could've added other people as well that had contributed, but I thought it would mean more to my daughter if it was her family only.

I've decided that even though we home educate, I'm still going to try and do a September school photo.  I know you could get packages as low as $6 at Walmart's Studio...so even if I had to go somewhere else and had to track down some coupons, I think I could budget for a single pose on a traditional blue background.  The picture I used for Fourth Grade is Rosalinda's first day of school photo.  One of our traditions is to buy a new pair of pjs for the first day of school, rather than an outfit. :)

Had to get some favorites so she can see how cool/dorky she was when she was 10, lol.  :)

These were some of Rosalinda's best buds.  One of them doesn't live in the same state, but I had the others sign their pages.

Our sweet pup Jules, kitty Twinkles, and a special project of mine.
Last December I did our own version of Elf on the Shelf with a polar bear named Snowflake.
Rosalinda got a package in the mail with Snowflake and a request from the Inuit Teacher's Association.  They had been overrun with cubs and didn't have enough teachers to instruct them all.  So Rosalinda was asked to teach mischievous Snowflake about the true meaning of Christmas.  We had a lot of fun with it. ;)


















We do a lot at our public library!  We have three branches that take turns hosting, tween, teen, and family events.


This is the awesome educational supply store that ultimately helped me get the yearbook made!


These pages were set aside for people to sign.  This same "paper" was on the back of the cover and the very back of the book to provide extra space for signing.  I asked for people to sign anywhere they wanted EXCEPT for the front cover.

Total Cost: $28

I did have to buy extra ink because I wanted a colorful yearbook, used cardstock I had on hand (printing front and back) and I didn't have to pay for the lamination and binding.  

My original idea would have cost me less than $7 to laminate and bind.

What I Would Or Would Not Do Next Time

• Do a border and not a full color background on each page
• More signature pages (some people had trouble finding enough space to say all that they wanted to say)
• Possibly look at formatting it to fit a photo book and keep my eyes open for coupons...that way it gets a hard cover and everything prints directly on glossy paper and I don't have to worry about laminating
• Because of the order of events leading to the final publishing of this book, the signature pages were laminated before being signed.  From my research everything I found said that sharpies is the best to use, but I'm finding that they still will rub off weeks after, so I'm trying to figure out what to do to preserve the wishes for years to come.
• If I laminate, I may leave those pages unlaminated and add them later.  That way I can still have it bound and available to view at the showcase.  
• Or leave it all unlaminated...undecided at this point.  
• This is what makes the photo books seem like a good idea.

Overall, I was pleased with it and am planning on doing one each year moving forward! :)

Another Successful Year

We have ended a successful year and I am already organizing our next year!

I started homeschooling midway through Rosalinda's third grade year.  I pulled her from the public system in November and started the week before Thanksgiving.

In a single week, I read "Top 100 Curriculum Picks for Homeschool Curriculum," created the list of curriculum I wanted to try out, touched base with Rosalinda's dad, who was amazingly in agreement, and even had the money on hand to make the $300 purchase in curriculum at our local Mardel's.  

Our first year wasn't a "trophy case" year, but I learned a lot about what NOT to do again, lol.  My poor child dealt with some craziness, but we survived and she still had a desire to homeschool fourth grade.

For fourth grade, I changed our science and language arts curriculum and made her own space in our living room to 'get her learn on.'  I affectionately labeled it her "genius corner."

I was more educated with my purchases and grabbed used pieces everywhere I could!  So my $300 purchase of last year was NOT repeated and I got even more materials for around $150!

We had an overwhelming busy year and learned so much!

I actually had an end!  Last year, I'm sad to admit, kind of faded out opposed to officially ending.

We ended our year with a showcase that allowed Rosalinda to show our family and friends all her hard work.

I designed the invitation myself after searching and searching in vain for an invite that didn't use the word birthday or have monster's with party hats.  I had them printed as photos at Walgreens.  

The only problem I ran into was finding envelopes that fit!  They do have photo sized envelopes, but

that were ridiculously priced because they are a specialty item.  So....

I took regular business length envelopes, sliced two inches off each side, and used craft tape to close it up!  They worked perfectly!

I sent them out about a month in advance due to all of the graduation schedules that would have to be coordinated.

Our showcase was a hit!  We had table displays for each subject.  (As the host, I wasn't able to really take pictures myself, so I had to rely on the collection of photos from our friends and family, so you might notice some style differences, lol.)  We greeted people as they entered and started with our presentations.  I gave an overview of our year and Tiff's accomplishments.  I said personal thank yous to everyone there, as we only invited friends and family that had impacted our homeschool experience.

Rosalinda did two presentations.  She recited a poem that she had to memorize as part of our poetry unit.  She also did a puppet show of Aesop's Fables.  She wrote the scripts and created the puppets herself and had some cute elements.  This picture is of her doing The Fox and the Crab.  She also did The Crow and the Pitcher, which brought lots of giggles. My favorite part being the light bulb she had that lit up above the crow's head when he got the idea to put pebbles in the pitcher.  This puppet show was a result of Aesop being one of her favorite history lessons we did when studying Greek Culture.  She gave a small summary of Aesop and his life before starting the show.

After the presentations, we gave my parents a certificate of appreciation, as this year they have become the biggest supports of their granddaughter's education!  I also gave Rosalinda a formal certificate of achievement.

After 20 minutes of presentations, I asked everyone to browse her trifolds and notebooks and to feel free to ask her questions.  We also had thank you favors for everyone and I made a yearbook.  All of our loved ones signed their summer wishes and now my daughter has a great keepsake from this year! :)

Her Art Display (She made all the trifolds herself, by the way)

We used our timeline trifolds from the year as our backdrop for our history display. 

Her Math Display

For her science display, we had a sound wave experiment available using combs and wax paper (the materials aren't pictured, but they are there!).

Here is a broader view of her history, math, science, and art displays!

Her Language Arts and Bible/Virtue were combined on this table

I also put up a small photo booth with monster props.  I posted the instructions and had props in a vase.  This is Rosalinda's uncle, Rosalinda with one of her brothers (from her dad), and Rosalinda with her great-grandparents that traveled 1,600 miles to support her!  We're sooooo loved!  (And probably a little spoiled.)

We had so much fun and it was so great to be able to show our gratitude and share our year with our community!  I can't wait to do it again next year!

Transition Day 1

Ok, so we are undoing all that we have done for the past year.

We're giving our homeschool schedule, method, and just about everything a new look.

Since I don't have everything in place, but don't want to wait any longer to move ahead, we had a very lackadaisical day.

I did take us to the library to try and keep us on point and give me the opportunity to gather materials.

We did our math lesson and then busted out our first cursive lesson!

I had some dry erase books that I purchased years ago that were perfect for her to practice.  Plus I didn't have to print anything out!!!  Bonus!

Lately Lil Bit has been missing her half-brothers [that live with her dad], so we decided to incorporate them into our daily work.  For Language Arts, she is writing them a letter.  We are going to work on our form, grammar, and content.

For art she is drawing them each a picture, but is using a resource to help her.  The oldest of her three brothers is obsessed with dinosaurs, so we used "How to Draw Dinosaurs" by Rob Court.

Sorry for the blur.

Here is her draft and the finished project.  She's really excited.  She hasn't figured out quite yet what to do for the other two.  We're going to try some other illustration books and watch her surprise herself with what she is able to do!

Another idea I have is to let her make a poster for each brother that says, "Sissy loves [and their name]."  Then take a picture of her holding the poster and send them a developed copy of the picture to keep.  Just to let them know that she is thinking of them.

So, what did you do today?