A memory book kids fill in themselves, plus 100th day of school pages

In June the backpack came home with a stapled booklet called Second Grade Memories. Inside, my daughter had drawn her teacher with enormous glasses and written that the field trip to the farm was the best because of the goat. It is the only piece of schoolwork from that year I still have.

What the sheet looks like

The memory book generator prints that booklet one page per sheet, with your grade and school year typed in. The end-of-year book has a cover, my teacher, my friends, my favorite subject, my favorite memory, field trip, I learned, then and now, autographs, next year I will, and a summer bucket list. You can print all of them, a quick set of 4, 6 or 10, or pick pages one by one.

Switch to 100th day of school and the pages change: when I am 100 years old, 100 things I could eat, count to 100, a 100 dot challenge, write 100 words, if I had $100, a cut-out crown and a stamp-to-100 grid. A first-day set has a first day sign, my teacher is, I am __ years old, when I grow up and a handprint page.

Why it works

• Every page is a writing prompt with a reason. "Next year I will" gets more honest sentences out of a seven-year-old than any assigned topic.
• The then-and-now page puts a September drawing box beside a June one. Children can see their own progress without anyone saying a word.
• Primary lines with a midline or ruled lines, so the same book works for a kindergartener and a fifth grader.

Who it suits

Pre-K and kindergarten do well with the 4-page set and primary lines, with an adult writing some words in. Grades 3 to 5 can take all eleven pages on ruled lines. The 100th day set is really for K to 2; older children find it babyish. For a start-of-year version of the same idea, the All About Me sheets are the match.

Print one extra copy of the cover. The first one always gets a juice stain.