Scrapbooking for Students – A Fun and Educational Afterschool Activity

Plan a scrapbook activity for your afterschool program or during events throughout the school year! Scrapbooking is a great craft idea for educational programs because it encourages self-expression, and personal reflection in a fun, hands-on way. It allows students to preserve memories, explore their interests, and enhance their storytelling abilities by combining art and writing. It promotes collaboration when done in groups, encouraging teamwork and communication, making it an ideal blend of creativity and social learning for afterschool environments.

Additionally, scrapbooking helps develop fine motor skills through cutting, gluing, and designing pages, while also improving organizational skills as students arrange and structure their projects.

Gather Your Supplies:

• Album or Scrapbook: Choose a size and scrapbook type that suits your needs. There are several options, including spiral-bound scrapbooks, or blank journals. We also offer a scrapbook kit, which is perfect for a scrapbooking group. 
• Paper: To add an extra pop of color to your pages, and to create some shapes, you’ll need some card stock paper or regular construction paper.  

• Adhesives: Use photo-safe adhesives like tape, glue dots, or glue sticks to attach photos and paper decorations. 
• Scissors: Pass out student safe scissors or simplify things with a trimmer for pre-cut designs for your group, depending on their age / grade level.
• Pens and Markers: Use gel pens or markers to decorate pages, write captions, dates and journal on your pages. 
• Decorations: To decorate you pages, you’ll need stickers, stamping, stencils and patterned paper!

• Photos and Memorabilia: Have your group gather their favorite photos, postcards or any other memorabilia they would like to include. You can provide magazines or printed pages for those who don’t have printed photos. 

Choose a Theme

Deciding a theme for your scrapbook activity helps guide design choices for students and keeps their project cohesive, while still allowing them to get creative and make it personal. The theme could be as broad as “Family Memories” or as specific as “Your Favorite Hobby”. Have students bring in photos that week that they will want to use for the activity. This is also a great way to involve family, and encourage family engagement in projects they are doing at school or afterschool. 

Plan Out Your Layouts

Before your group starts gluing things down, they will need to plan their page layouts. You may want to provide some simple instructions for designs to make it easier during the activity. Students can determine how many pictures they want to include on each page, where each picture should be for each page, and how to balance decorative elements with white space. Sketching rough drafts of some layouts ahead of time can be helpful, especially if your groyp is new to scrapbooking.

Start Creating

Here’s the fun part! It’s time to begin creating scrapbooks full of memories. 

• Layering: Create layers using papers, photos and embellishments. Don’t be afraid to experiment with different textures and patterns. 
• Journaling: Add personal touches by including handwritten notes, captions, or stories, written on card stock. This enhances the narrative and also adds a heartfelt element to your pages. 

• Embellishments: Use stickers, craft tape, or craft tape to decorate your pages.

After creating their scrapbooks, your afterschool group can engage in a meaningful discussion by sharing their completed pages with one another. Students can present their favorite scrapbook pages and explain why certain memories or themes were important to them, encouraging self-expression and public speaking. This sharing session allows students to reflect on their personal experiences and connect with peers over shared interests or stories. A reflection exercise could involve asking students what they learned about themselves through the process, how they felt while creating their scrapbook, and what new skills they developed. Discussing challenges they faced during the activity and how they overcame them promotes problem-solving and resilience. This kind of reflection builds a sense of accomplishment and strengthens group cohesion.

Our Gratitude Journals can help with reflecting on how their day went, and jot down notes on activities throughout the week. 

View all of our Scrapbooking Supplies here >