Is your child graduating this year?  The time seems to go by so fast. It often seems like only yesterday that our graduates started kindergarten.  Now they are graduating high school and will be off to college by fall.  It’s important to preserve and document those special final moments of high school in a graduation scrapbook.

Even though you have a school scrapbooking album for your child, you’ll still want a high school graduation scrapbook album.  High school memories can fill an entire album.  You can choose a small album, but remember if you want to accommodate senior portraits, you’ll want a larger scrapbook.

Senior pictures are usually taken the summer before a student’s senior year.  Still, they deserve a page in a graduation album.  Use your favorite pose or the one used in the high school yearbook for your graduation scrapbook’s title page.

There’s so much to include in a graduation scrapbook.  Reserve one copy of your child’s graduation announcement and showcase it on a page.  Following that page, include cards and letters from family and friends, especially ones with graduation advice.  You might even include a letter from you with a personal message to the graduate.  Write your hopes and dreams for their future along with advice you wish you would have been given on graduation day.

If your child is receiving a special award or honor at the graduation ceremony, be sure to design a page to highlight this accomplishment.  Once the graduation is over, either include the original certificate in the album or make a copy.

If your child is giving a speech at the graduation ceremony, take some photographs of the graduate preparing and practicing the speech.  Preserve his notes including any drafts and use them on a scrapbook page.

Newspapers often cover graduations.  Clip articles from your local paper for a graduation scrapbook page.  If you or another family member have placed a congratulations newspaper ad for your graduate, make a photocopy of it to preserve it in the album.  Newspaper articles tend to fade over time, and copies will last longer.

Graduation is full of photo opportunities. Think about the photos you want in your child’s graduation scrapbook, and make a list before the celebration starts.  Pictures of the ceremony are important, but so are photos of your child with his friends, family and teachers.

Don’t forget high school mementos, such as, the program from the graduation ceremony.  Save at least two copies to use on a graduation scrapbook page so you can show both the cover and the inside of the program.

Send a camera with your graduate to any graduation parties.  Then you’ll have a lot of candid shots of your child with his friends.  Try to exchange photos with his friends too.  Sharing photos will give you a lot more options for your scrapbook graduation pages.

You may want to include a copy of your graduate’s final report card or grade transcripts.  A nice complement to this would be a copy of the acceptance letter to the college he plans to attend.

The final closing page to the graduation scrapbook could be a photograph of him leaving for college.  You might also choose to include a picture of his first day of kindergarten alongside a graduation picture.

A graduation scrapbook will become a family heirloom.  You don’t need to make it complicated.  The most important part of a graduation scrapbook is to preserve and document your graduate’s special day.

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