Does it seem like only yesterday that your child started kindergarten?  Now he’s graduating from high school and will soon start college in the fall.  It’s important to document your child’s high school years in a special graduation scrapbook.

Even if you already have a school scrapbooking album for your child, the high school years can fill an entire album.  You don’t need to use a large album unless you want to include professional senior portraits.  Otherwise, you can use a smaller format album.

Senior pictures are usually taken the summer before a student’s senior year.  Still, they deserve a page in a graduation album.  Use your favorite pose or the one used in the high school yearbook for your graduation scrapbook’s title page.

There’s so much to include in a graduation scrapbook.  Reserve one copy of your child’s graduation announcement and showcase it on a page.  Following that page, include cards and letters from family and friends, especially ones with graduation advice.  You might even include a letter from you with a personal message to the graduate.  Write your hopes and dreams for their future along with advice you wish you would have been given on graduation day.

Highlight any special awards or honors that your child is receiving at the graduation ceremony.  Designed page layouts to highlight these accomplishments.  You may want to include the original certificates or make copies.

If your child is giving a speech at the graduation ceremony, take some photographs of the graduate preparing and practicing the speech.  Preserve his notes including any drafts and use them on a scrapbook page.

Check your local newspaper for coverage of the graduation ceremony.  Include clips and articles for a scrapbook page.  Make a copy of any congratulations announcements made in the newspaper.  Because newspaper articles fade over time, it’s important to make copies to preserve them.

Before the celebration even starts, make a list of the photo opportunities you don’t want to miss.  Photographs of your graduate with family, teachers and friends are as important as pictures of the actual ceremony.

Mementos of high school graduates should include the program from the graduation ceremony.  Try to preserve more than one copy to use on a graduation scrapbook page to show both the cover and the inside as much as possible.

Take lots of candid shots during graduation parties.  You may not be attending some of these parties.  So be sure to send along a camera with your graduate and plan to exchange photos with his friends, too.  You’ll have a lot more photos to choose from if you share them.

You’ll definitely want to scrapbook a copy of your graduates final report card or high school transcript.  On the opposite page layout scrapbook a copy of the acceptance letter for the college your child plans to attend.

The final closing page to the graduation scrapbook could be a photograph of him leaving for college.  You might also choose to include a picture of his first day of kindergarten alongside a graduation picture.

A graduation scrapbook will become a family heirloom.  You don’t need to make it complicated.  The most important part of a graduation scrapbook is to preserve and document your graduate’s special day.