Holiday Scrapbook

This is the 3rd year that my eldest daughter has kept a scrapbook of things she has done over the summer holidays. This year my youngest wanted to have her own book too.


It is an excellent keepsake and is lovely to look through, especially as it helps us remember things we did in previous years that we may like to do again.


All we use is a cheap A4 lined pad which can be bought from any supermarket. I find these are best as it gives lines for the children to write their thoughts on. I know that it does not give an acid free background for the photos to be mounted on, but it is intended only to give the girls a place to stick memento's.


On the first page the year is written (so for my eldest Summer Holidays school year 2011-2012).


On the second page we write the start and end date of the summer holiday and under this will be written the notable activities and the date it was done eg:


Friday 22nd July - Tuesday 6th Sept


Fri 22nd July - Signed up for the Summer reading challenge
Sun 24th July - Travelled to Devon (pooh Cottage - camping) and stopped at Stonehenge
Mon 25th July - Went to Budleigh Salterton beach
             etc.


We left 2 pages to write the day by day information on, then we wrote 'Fri 22nd July - Summer reading Challenge'. A further 2 pages were left after this title so the girls can stick in the 3D stage and the certificate once they are completed. Then the following page was given the title 'Sun 24th July- Camping and Stonehenge'. My Eldest then proceeded to write in the information she recalled from the audio commentary from Stonehenge (so far she has written 3/4 of a page and still wants to write more, it really sparked her interest). My youngest is too young to write her own information so I wrote the title out for her in pencil and she went over it in a different coloured pencil, next she stuck in the tickets from Stonehenge and the information booklets we were given. We will leave spaces for photos too before progressing to the next day/page.


This allows us to keep mementos from holidays- in previous years my eldest has collected 'Hagrid sick' (green paper which was used to represent sick from Hagrid when we went to Alnwick Castle last year), tickets from films we went to see at the cinema and pony hair from dartmoor ponies that we found on Dartmoor when we were there last week.


The girls really do enjoy doing this and for my eldest it is a way of improving her writing without it feeling like work. The children can put in as much or as little information into the books as they want/are able and it also makes sure that I remember to take photos through out the holidays.


I also enjoy helping them to keep these memories and we finish off every yearly entry with a photo of them on the first day back to school. This provides a lovely yearly record of growth, especially if you have the same piece of furniture in the background so you can see how they have grown!