Project Passport

One of my favorite activities to do with my students the last week of school is to wrap up the year's history and geography studies with a craft. This craft is not only fun, but it is educational as well. And it fits in so nicely with fourth grade's foreign country theme.

We make passports.

First I let them see my family's real passports. They are free to look at them, laugh at old pictures, and see the different countries we have travelled to. I explain to them how a passport is used, and why it is necessary to have one for international travel. They always find this fascinating.

After all questions have been asked and answered, the real fun begins. I give each student their own passport that I have put together previously by cutting a piece of blue construction paper in half, and then adding five sheets of printer paper cut in half and stapled down the middle to create 10 pages when folded into a book. Then using a pattern I have cut out, I spray paint a golden eagle on the front. A gold paint pen works nicely to add the lettering.

I give each student the laminated picture of themselves that I have been using all year for bulletin board displays. They tape or glue their picture on the inside cover.

Since our history and geography books are in the form of lifepacs, I let the students cut out pictures of all the places we have studied this year to use as "stamps" to fill their passports. To ensure that each student will have all their lifepacs at the end of the year, I always collected them before starting a new one.

Students cut out flags of Australia, Turkey, Kenya and  Brazil. They had flags of Hong Kong, Great Britain, Argentina and Ukraine. There were platypuses, penguins and anacondas. Some had visited the Sydney Opera House, while others preferred pictures of the Crown Jewels.

Great explorers like Christopher Columbus and Henry Stanley filled their pages. Tropical rain forests, grasslands, deserts and polar regions stamped their books. Some even travelled to outer space, a place where my passport will NEVER get stamped!

One word of caution: When it comes to glue, less is best! Every year I have at least one student who has to prop their passport open to keep the pages from gluing shut.
















This project is a huge hit with even the most art-resistant students. This year I turned it into a gradable project. Everyone earned an E+ for their efforts, and produced a fine souvenir of 4th grade in the process.