Sitting on my desk is a READY-TO-GO accordion book.

Last year I purchased 25 Accordion Blank Board Books, as a donation to my daughter’s preschool classroom. I gave them to the teacher and asked “Do you think you could use these for something?”

I didn’t give her any suggestions on what she could possibly do, just to see what she might come up with. I was surprised, along with the rest of the parents, at the end of the year “graduation” with a gift from the teachers, an accordion photo album, highlighting big events throughout the school year. There are photos of Livi with Santa, at the pumpkin patch, a class photo of all the children in their Halloween costumes, the fire station field trip (a photo of Livi and a firefighter spraying the fire hose, priceless), the St. Jude’s Trike-a-Thon, and they even had the kids do handprint turkeys. It is such a nice remembrance of my daughter Livi’s preschool year.

The best part of it was something that was completely unplanned by the teachers. When you fold the accordion in, you can see at the same time a photo of your child from the first day of school along side of a photo of your child at the end of the year, both photos include your child’s height. Almost every child grew 2 inches and they all transformed from toddlers at the beginning of the year, into young children ready for kindergarten at the end of the year. It is so amazing to see this change in a single school year!