Remnant Books

Now that some of the background has been provided to show the shift I took from those common special education behavioral approaches to a perspective that removed all demands on her to prove herself repeatedly, I want to share the next step I took.  I really think you are all going to like this because it is something that is extremely easy to do, a remnant book.  Rylee and I began constructing her very first remnant book in May 2013.

A remnant book is essentially like a scrapbook of activities the student has participated in.  You can include anything you like in the book.  You can display it in any way you like.  I am not a crafty person whatsoever; therefore, I just used a three-ring binder with page protectors.  I bought colorful cardstock to glue the ‘remnants’ to.  Items to include in the remnant book can range from receipts, movie ticket stubs, pictures, or napkins from a birthday party etc (anything really).  I also included a short sentence that described the event.  I quickly learned that once we completed a remnant book page I needed to seal it with packing tape.  A mistake I made is not including the date of the activity on the page.  I wish I would have done that!

There are a couple of purposes the remnant book serves.  One is for conversation starters, which can be very helpful to school staff and extended family to engage in conversation about meaningful topics to the student.  An example, the student comes to school from the weekend and the school staff can look at the new remnant book page and see that ‘Sally’ went to the movies with her family.  This can pose as a conversation starter to talk about the movie and provide vital opportunities to model Sally’s AAC device!  The same goes for the school staff and Sally to add remnant pages about school so Sally’s parents and she can talk about what happened at school that day.  The second purpose the remnant book serves is for daily writing topics.  I’ll get more into that in another blog post. 

It did not take long for Rylee to catch on to what the remnant book was all about.  We spent that summer creating her first book.  Rylee simply adores her remnant books because they are her own experiences and the book is something she helped to create!  When I would see her drag it to the living room, I would sit beside her and model her PODD to talk about the remnant page she was looking at.  It wasn’t until September 2013 that she began using the remnant book for writing topics, but by then she had plenty of topics to choose from for her writing.

As you can see, a remnant book is very easy to implement.  If I can do it, anyone can do it!  Remnant books are as personalized and crafty as you make them.  It is also a great activity to do together and is something your child will surely cherish.