Craft a feature for your book that families will love for years! -Image Credit: Lori McDonough | freshpickedwhimsy.typepad.com
When you’re working to create a preschool yearbook that shines, part of your focus should always be on the future. And since there’s nothing cuter than a feature about what those eager little faces want to be when they grow up, it’s the perfect addition to your publication! But I’m not talking about just your average kind of career aspirations page. To boost the creativity in your final book, this particular idea centers around a fun photoshopped version of your students’ faces–complete with illustrated accessories to match each child’s job pick! Below, I’ll walk you through the easiest way to get a feature like this created, from building teacher buy-in to making your artwork shine.
Your Preschool Yearbook Features Start in the Classroom
Your first hurdle is getting teacher buy-in. You’ll want to talk with each classroom early on in the year, as some kind of career day is likely part of the preschool lesson plan already. This will give you plenty of time to collaborate with teachers on the details you need, as well as give them time to think up some fun ways to work your needs into their plans. To help make this easier on the teachers, you can easily pull together a list of creative occupations that they could consider talking about with their preschoolers. Remember to include a multitude of options, from an artist to a firefighter to a stay-at-home-dad. The more ideas you give students, the more they’ll learn about the variety of opportunities they have to choose from–and the more creative your feature will end up being!
Gather Your Materials
To create the illustrations for your yearbook, you don’t need a million supplies–and that’s really part of the appeal that a feature like this holds! Don’t make the logistics too hard for teachers–they already have a lot to wrangle within the classroom. Instead of asking them to pull together costume ideas for all of the unique jobs their students are exploring, have them encourage their preschoolers to use their imaginations or make a drawing of what they think they would dress like in a particular occupation. For the final book, you just need to know what future career aspiration each child listed. You can take separate photos of each child, if you’d like–but you can easily use the same pictures that appear on the class pages, because they certainly won’t look the same when you’re done with them! For the actual illustrations, you’ll need a photo editing program, such as Photoshop, as well as a little bit of creative thinking. And that’s it! A super simple list of tools for a feature that’s sure to put a smile on every parent’s face.
Put Your Creativity to Work
And now for the fun: creating your page! After removing the background from the students’ photos, use your photo-editing software to draw some endearing accessories onto each child. If you have someone on your committee who is great with Photoshop–or at least has some simple skills–utilize them. It will make this step go super smoothly! And if your drawings aren’t looking like you’d envisioned, spend a little time searching for great illustrated clipart that you can use within your feature. This is a great project to involve your entire team, too. It’s not difficult to pull together, and you’ll have a lot of fun checking out all of the cute job choices the students at your school made. With a little bit of effort, you’ll pull together an amazing feature for your preschool yearbook that everyone will ooh and aah over, and families will love looking back on as their child grows!
