scrap books

My friend Heidi was a guest teacher yesterday. She started teaching the kids how to make scrap books. Heidi showed the students some of her own personal scrap books and talked about her interest in the visual diary. She has saved special images in homemade scrap books for over ten years. She uses these as a source of future inpiration and reflection. They include photographs, show cards, receits, tickets, letters, images ripped from newspapers and magazines, drawings, text, diary entries, and many other strange and wonderful things she has decided to hang on to. Some of the kids couldn't believe that Heidi stuck paint sample cards and plane tickets in her visual diary. It's true.

The scrap book project needs to be done in several seperate stages and demands a great deal of precision and concentration. Yesterday the students measured and ripped pages, and then folded them neatly at the center. Next week we will sew the pages together and start on making the book covers. I hope this project inspires the students to think about what it means to create their own visual diaries. Sylvia said she has already started her own poetry/sketch book, but for many of the other students this is a new concept.

Heidi, thank you for the inspiration.