First Day of School - Free Template!
I no longer have children to photograph on the first day of school. All three of them decided to grow up and graduate! Even as I type the words and the reality sets in again, it continues to feel foreign and there's a little bit of my heart that breaks each fall.
Besides the obligatory first day of school photo, I also made sure to write them a personal note to leave on their breakfast plate. It was usually something sappy and encouraging about how wonderful they were, how proud I was of them, and how much I looked forward to their successes that year. I'm sure I cried as I wrote them realizing how fast time was passing and yet another summer was closing.
I'm one of those scrapbookers that everyone thinks is so organized, but let me keep this real for you … I'm NOT one of those. I didn't keep a copy of those notes for myself and there are plenty of years of "First Day of School" photos that haven't seen the light of a scrapbook yet!
So … consider this post an act of public service to all young mommies sending kids back to school. I've designed a template with space for a "First Day of School" photo, a note to the child, a "Last Day of School" photo, and an interview with the child. Take the advice of this veteran mom: do yourself a big favor and get all twelve years set up in advance! All you'll have to do each year is put the photos in, paste the text of your note (or a photo of the original note given to the child), and conduct an interview.
This template is a simple design leaving plenty of room for you to embellish and change as you wish. Here are a few ideas to get your creativity going:
Use frames for the photos rather than matting.
Overlap the photos.
Use snippets of notebook paper instead of pasting the text in the provided space.
Use a border of stitiching or ribbon.
Add in elements like rulers, apples, pencils, buttons, or tags.
You're only limited by your own imagination!
Here's an example:
(Kit used in sample: School Daze by Design by Dani)
For the interview, be sure to list the teacher's name, favorite color, favorite classroom activity, best friend's name, favorite book, and anything you think of that is unique to the child and the grade they are in. Include their height and weight, their favorite food, and what they want to be when they grow up.
Elementary aged children will probably find your interview questions fun, but as they reach middle school and high school, you might have a harder time getting them to do an interview with you. I suggest making a list of their friends, awards they receive, favorite teachers, books read, favorite subjects, and other information that sets the year apart for them.
These pages would make a wonderful album on their own, but they would also serve very well as a title page of sorts with other pages inserted behind them to tell the whole story of the year. You could put artwork or book reports in page protectors. Certificates often fit in page protectors as well and class photos could be mounted on cardstock to be included.
Just cuz we love you this much, we have made the template downloadable for you!
We've also put our Back to School section on sale for 30% off TODAY ONLY!
Happy Back-to-School and Happy Scrapbooking!
