My name is Stacia and I’m a pocket scrapping member of Mye’s creative team. I’m primarily a digital scrapper and this is my third year documenting our everyday life using pocket pages.

For many of us, we are right in the middle of back to school time. For me personally, my kids are in college so I’m not scrapping the cute first day of school photos of my kids all dressed up with handmade decorative signs. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t just LOVE seeing them on Facebook and posted in the galleries. Because I am looking at the back to school season sort of “in hindsight” mode now, I thought I might share a few ideas about documenting your kids of all ages getting ready to go back to school.

There is always something about picking out just the perfect outfit for the first day of school. Having some photos of a few new purchases laid on their bed or hanging in their closet definitely shows their own personal style RIGHT NOW. Let’s not forget the pile of notebook paper, pencils, crayons, glue sticks etc that you’ve had to drive across town to find! That type of back to school shopping definitely deserves a place in your pocket album. It always seems like there are one or two elusive items each year that you have to struggle to locate. It becomes almost a treasure hunt to find them. {I seem to recall the hunt for the endangered yellow pocket folders with prongs one year…} For me this year, it was bedspread and sheets, towels and laundry supplies, small kitchen appliances and other dorm accessories spread out all over the dining room table and getting set up in the dorm. I think just about all college students remember setting up their first dorm room and how different life was from that point forward.

I’m seeing photos of elementary school students with their teachers during the first few weeks of school. I wish I had photos like this from when my kids were smaller. You don’t really know at the beginning of the year just how much a certain teacher will affect your child. I remember always feeling so lucky that my children’s teachers just somehow seemed to GET them, to understand how they thought and learned, their strengths and weaknesses. I can remember several specific teachers that shared really heartfelt stories about my kids and how they interacted with their peers that moved me to tears. They are still my memories but I do wish I had the foresight to write down those things while I was IN that moment. Having photos of your child with someone that could potentially have such a big impact on their lives is priceless. You might not know until sometimes years later just how BIG that impact was for them. This isn’t as easy when they reach middle school and high school age because there are so many teachers with which they interact. But, with the prevalence of cell phone and pocket cameras in the hands of our kids of that age, they can take those photos themselves and share them with you if you ask

Does your child have an established small group of friends that they just can’t wait to see everyday at school again? Be sure to document those bonds of friendship. Their small group interactions change from year to year but these are special friendships that they’ll remember years later. For older kids, their phone camera will likely be an endless source of these little gems. My 23 year old daughter’s best friend is still someone she met in preschool. Having photos of them from over the years is something she treasures.

For some, you’ll get a little teary when you drop them off at kindergarten, wondering how they’ll do all day long without you. For others, you’ll relish those few hours at home where you can get something accomplished uninterrupted without having to entertain them 24/7 or perhaps you’ll sit at your desk wondering if they had a friend to sit with for lunch. For those like me, you’ll move them into a dorm, help stow all their stuff, set up their beds, desk areas and dressers and then go home hoping they’ll text or call in a few days. {Mom, do I have towels?  Ummm, yes… look under the bathroom sink, babe!} I’m a big proponent of the fact that our children benefit from our scrapbooking hobby by the bits of US that we leave in our scrapbooks, our own footprint. Your kids might get a kick out of learning that you cried TOO after you dropped them off on the first day…

The beauty of this scrapbooking hobby that we love so much is the ability to tell our stories in as many ways as we wish. A pocket page filled with a few photos of the outside of school, the school bus, the teacher, etc, with some journaling cards to add context and some of the the little details paired with an opposing traditional layout focusing on just one part of the story would be a nice way to document your children’s back to school experience.

To see more of my pocket pages, please visit my blog.

How are YOU going to scrap back to school? Please link us up to your layouts in the comments.