Collecting Ephemera at the Primary Level.

Now here’s a cool idea for all of you primary teachers who want to tap into the power of writer’s notebooks without each student actually having a writer’s notebook. Plus I think it could also be a tool for the rest of us wanting to focus on the ephemera surrounding the daily lives of ourselves and our students

Tonya Haywood, kindergarten teacher extraordinaire, is intending to give each of her students a cheapie 4×6 photo album. You know, the ones which have ugly covers and cost 99 cents at your local dollar store . . . or Target?  Speaking of those ugly covers, you can pull them out & replace them (which I learned in my Have More Fun class).

They can then take these little books home and stuff them full of photos, wrappers, ticket stubs . . . all of the cool ephemera from the daily life of a five year old and then bring them back to school. This tiny book can then serve as a spring board of ideas to write about.

For those of you who are following the Lucy Calkins’ Primary Series, she recommends notebooks called “Tiny Topics” in her poetry unit. I’m percolating about using something like the cheapie photo album for this.