SOL16-8/31 - A Small Thing Can Become A Tradition

SOLC #8/31 - 

      I'm slicing with the Two Writing Teachers community for Day Eight of Thirty-One of the Slice of Life Challenge in March.  Thank you Stacey, Tara, Anna, Betsy, Dana, Kathleen, Beth, and Deb.  

        I'd like to share a tradition I started in class a long time ago, from a colleague's idea. All through the year I took pictures of students, working, with friends, playing, on trips, and one individual specific one showing some special part of who they were. For instance, I might take one of a girl in full make-up, a rising star on stage; or I might take an action shot of a boy who studied the physics of skateboards, and he demonstrated on his board! Another might be someone peaking from beneath a table, a place he liked to read and write. And one more example could be a girl at our podium, making a fiery speech (future debater). 



      Why am I describing these scenes? Because through the year I took parts of the photos and made them magnets for a common area file cabinet. These mostly stayed unless one student who was leaving begged me for it. And each time alumni came to visit, they sat by the file cabinet, looking, remembering.
        However, at the end of the year, those "special" moments I tried to capture as described above were also made into magnets, and were part of the gifts I gave with a thank you note to the student. 

      How-To: Go to an office supply store and purchase a pack of business card magnets, follow the directions, hold the picture up to the light to see what part you'd like, affix the magnet and cut. Voila! You have your picture!

Here's my own "refrigerator" magnet collection. FYI-the black & white picture is larger, ordered from a Christmas picture. You can't see it all. I look every day at someone, greeting, saying to myself, "I remember when. . ."