I like the trading card idea, It would be nice if you kept them until the end of the year for each child though. We used the black paper and gel pens this year. Not good for the pre schoolers at all, they ended up gluing in white papers in their books. A lot of wasted paper but so much fun to look at. I can see growth in all of my kids over the course of the year. I also the like the guest book idea. I may do something similiar to the cards but make a book out of them at the end of the year for each student and keep a guest one too. We have a digital camera and I want to add everyone's picture to one card at the beginning and at the end.
Thanks for the great ideas.
Sheila