Perhaps one of the best uses of Treering’s unique offerings – the ability to create and order books online, order as many or as few as you like, and create awesome customized pages – is to create homeschool yearbooks.
Homeschooling is a viable option for students that maybe live very far out of town, have a parent who is a teacher, or feel they have a better learning environment at home, among other reasons. Just because these students are home doesn’t mean that they do not socialize, make friends, learn, and deserve to have the opportunity to preserve these incredible memories.
In the same way that homeschooled students have the power and opportunity to customize their learning experience, Treering can provide them with the tools to customize and create a striking, truly one-of-a-kind yearbook. After all, just as every home is different, so is the homeschool learning environment. A yearbook can be a great representation of a homeschool’s exceptional style, perspective, and creativity.
Homeschooling is a create opportunity to customize one’s education, and a great opportunity to make a one-of-a-kind yearbook. Image source: Flickr CC terren in Virginia
Many homeschool students are part of a co-op, where they get together with other homeschool students. They may meet up two or three times a week for various lessons or activities, interesting lectures, and field trips. This is a good chance for a whole group of people to go into one yearbook together. This is also a good opportunity to take some great photos of the group as a whole.
To start the creation of your homeschool yearbook, set aside part of the group’s time as a quasi-yearbook meeting. Assign one person to be the adviser – maybe one of the teachers or group leaders. Enroll parents to help act as treasurer, secretary, and committee members. The students will fulfill the rest of the committee duties.
Spend the first several meetings brainstorming the direction in which you want to take the yearbook and what you want it to say as part of your overarching mission. From there will come a flood of ideas for the theme, the layouts, and the different sections you want covered in the book.
Once you have a concrete theme, you can use this time to create valuable teaching moments. Teach and hold discussions on writing great stories for the yearbook, photography and camerawork, graphic design, and laying out pages. Before you start making the components of the book, it may be a good idea to send the students out on different assignments to help them hone in on their craft. This will also give you the chance to see who excels in what area of yearbook creation.
The next step is to decide what you want the structure of your homeschool yearbook to be. It could be beneficial to go to the local library and use some community yearbooks as reference. Once you decide on the arrangement of the book, come up with basic rules for what each each essential section should include.
For example: Perhaps two pages will be dedicated to every class the students participated in. Each class will have a basic description of the class’s mission, who the teacher was, and what he or she taught. It will also give an overview of the year’s most interesting projects. Additionally, student can offer direct quotes about that class with some explanation of what they learned and why it was valuable.
Another example: In lieu of student portraits, each student can have his or her own personalized pages. They can include photos of themselves, photos with friends and family, a list of their individual projects, what their goals are for the coming year, and what their favorite thing about the year was.
Creating a yearbook can be a valuable teaching tool. It incorporates important lessons on things like writing and interview skills, as well as creative tools like photography and design. Additionally, because Treering’s yearbooks are able to be printed and shipped within four weeks of ordering, your homeschool students will have ample time to construct a book that truly defines the homeschool experience. Use Treering to its full advantage when creating your homeschool yearbook and make sure to get everyone in on the process!
