Monster Bookmarks

It is officially the end of the school year. Finals are graded, my classroom is packed up, good-byes have been said.  My children are also excited for the school year to be over. For Grace, her year of preschool is finishing this week, and Matthew, his first year of kindergarten ended Thursday.

It has been a year of transition.  I started teaching at a new high school this past fall–one close to home so I am not travelling 90+ minutes a day.  My son started public school (I can’t believe how fast time flies!) and had weekly homework.  And my husband got a new job in January that is within walking distance of our house, so he’s not commuting 2 hours a day.  God has been good.

As the school year drew to a close, I wanted to give something to my students as an end-of-the-year present.  This year, I asked my English students to cultivate a reading life, to not just read the novels required in class, but have choice books to read for the shear joy of it.  Each month, students read at least one book outside of class (which meant they were reading two novels each month–one required and one choice) and then met with me to talk about it. And I read along with them, sharing books I was reading and giving book talks to the class. It was actually quite fun!

Because I desired for them to continue reading over the summer, and to keep the momentum of reading going, I decided to make bookmarks.  There was a blog post that came to my inbox a few months back discussing creative bookmarks–this was one of them. It was really fun to make, but what was even greater was seeing the looks on my students’ faces when I passed them out.  It was a great way to let them know I cared about them and the learning they were doing in my class.  And of course, it was a wonderful way to keep reading front and center (hopefully!) this summer.

If you’d like to make this bookmark, you can follow the tutorial here.  Enjoy! xoxo