Beginning of the Year meet End of the Year

At the beginning of last year, I asked my students to fill in a "get to know you" questionnaire as they entered my room on the second day of school.  On it, I had some personalish (I know that isn't a word, but I am feeling rebellious today ;) ) questions such as list your favorite food, what is something I should know about you, what you do at home, etc...The purpose of this was just to give me a little insight into the CHILDREN that my new students were.  Here are a few of them.

Now, you might be asking, what does this have to do with anything?  Well, let me tell you, I actually did use these for something!  At the end of the year, for my parting "gift" to my students, I used them to help me write "The Important Thing" pages for them!

If you have been following my blog from the beginning (or even have just read back to the first few entries) you will know how much I love The Important Book. I do so much with it, from learning about reference books, or just writing letters to people. It truly is an amazing book to use in the classroom. Since we had been using it so much in class, I thought it fitting to create an "Important Book" page for each student to remember their year with me.

Using the cards as my starting point, I thought of the ONE thing that stuck out to me about this student.  For example, this student was such a great friend to everyone in class.  She is the one who I could count on to help others and be welcoming.   So the first line of her poem read:

"The important thing about ______ is that she is an amazing friend to everyone."

Next, I used the card to fill in the rest of the poem.  The poem for this student went something like this:

"The important thing about ____ is that she is an amazing friend.
It is true that she studies hard in math and loves to play games online and enjoys crawling around with her brother.
She likes things that are hot pink, is a great speller, and could play basketball all day.
______ is allergic to nuts, but not pasta and loves to go to Harns Ranch to eat.
She also a wonderful class participant and a great partner to have.
But the important thing about _______ is that she is an amazing friend."

I can't tell you how ECSTATIC  my students were to get these.  The smiles were a mile wide...one even started to cry!  I think because we had given so many of these to our volunteers and other people, they never entertained the idea that they would get one about themselves.  It truly was a great end of the year gift for them.  And best of all, it cost me nothing.

Here are a few documents for you, in case you want to do something like this next year.  First off, I made my cards on Vista Print, but here is a sheet for you to use.

Then, here is the sentence frame for the Important Book that I used.

And that is it.  I know this takes a bit of planning (I mean, you do have to have the students fill in the cards at the beginning of the year and hold on to them!) but the smiles and reactions from the kids were well worth the effort!

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