Creating a Simple Homeschool Yearbook

Homeschooling families enjoy the flexibility and independence of our educational choices. We do however share some common threads with traditionally schooled families. Many Homeschoolers participate in sports, drama clubs, activities, proms and take school pictures. The yearbook is typically looked forward to all year long, highlighting our children's accomplishments; homeschoolers can have a yearbook also.

I have set out this year to create a simple yearbook to share with our friends. We participate in several online homeschool groups and have limited the size of the yearbook to our close friends. We are beginning this yearbook with 10 families and approximately 20 students. I am expecting the yearbook to be between 20 and 30 pages.

If beginning a yearbook project you must first decide what content you would like to include. We are going to offer one page per family with their children's names, grade, favorite subjects and list of activities, perhaps a favorite quote or Bible verse. Each individual family has been asked to submit photographs through email of their clubs, sports, activities, parties and field trips. There will also be a page to highlight awards, accomplishments and community service projects.

While there are many different photo editing software available, I have decided to make this yearbook as simply and inexpensively as possible. Using my Print Master program I have chosen clip art, exported them into My Documents in the "My Pictures" folder and using Microsoft Word to create our pages. As the photographs arrive from our friends in my email I will store them in a folder designated specifically for the yearbook, give them a title, organize according to each family and activity. They will now be ready to insert into my yearbook pages.

This plan was the easiest for me since I do not have Photo Shop options available or the necessary funds to utilize a yearbook publishing company. Upon completion of the yearbook I will be emailing the entire document as a Word attachment for each family to print for themselves. I will be taking my copy and storing them in a presentation report binder from an office supply store. This can also saved to a CD, converted to a PDF file and shared on the internet on a homeschooling support group website.

Depending on the success of our project we will be exploring other options for the new school year, perhaps using photo editing and desktop publishing as a way for my high school aged son to earn computer credits.