Scrapbooking Your Year

​​​By ISJL Education Fellow Paige Beame
 
​Although we may not be in school, there are still ways to commemorate the year and all the good memories we made in religious school. Whether it was an awesome program run by an ISJL Education Fellow, students participating in a mock wedding, or learning about the stories of the Tanakh (Torah, Prophets, and Writings/Hebrew Bible), a great way to remember all the fun we had together is with a scrapbook. Scrapbooking is a special end-of-year project that can involve both students and teachers. Each person can make their own scrapbook, or students can collaborate on one larger classroom scrapbook. Here are some suggestions for different ways to create your religious school’s very own scrapbooking project:
 
Diary Entries
 
Teachers can pose a topic or a few questions to students and encourage students to prepare a few paragraphs of response. Contributors can later email their pieces for distribution in a group scrapbook.
 
Video Yearbook
 
Zoom has a function that allows participants to record a session. This could inspire a fun project where students pair up or come together in groups to interview each other. After someone compiles the videos, classes will be able to access a digital yearbook. Just like the ISJL History Department created an oral history project (https://www.isjl.org/oral-history.html) to document southern Jewish heritage and perspective, classes can record their own conversations as a way to remember this time in their lives.
 
Traditional Scrapbook
 
Schools can also work on a more typical scrapbook. Teachers can instruct students to send in photos from earlier in the year, pieces of artwork that they made in class, or any other keepsake that they want to share and display in a group scrapbook.
 
Make It Your Own
 
Whichever medium you use to record your year, make sure you are centering it around a theme. Below are a few suggestions:
 

• Favorite in-class game
• Favorite Jewish activity to do at home
• Favorite Jewish food
• Something you will miss from this year
• Favorite Jewish memory from the past year
• Favorite craft project

 
We hope religious school classes or individual students take advantage of an opportunity to reflect on a unique year of learning and development!