Making a class directory for your child's school can be a fun project, and the finished product is something that other parents will greatly appreciate. Here are a few tips on how to put together a great class directory.

1. Get Permission. If you are a parent who has decided to put together a class directory for your child's school or class, it is important that you get the permission of school authorities before you begin compiling your information. Chances are, if no one at the school has taken on that task yet, they will likely be very grateful that someone is doing it, and will help you in any way they can. This will not only make the job much easier, it will make it a lot more fun as well.

2. Decide on The Scope. Are you going to create a directory for the whole school? The whole grade? Just the classes your child or children are in? You will have to decide on this, of course, as well as whatever other information you would like to include. It might be fun to have teachers and staff provide short bios, or to have other interesting information like trivia tidbits about the school's history or a list of famous people who attended the school in years past.

3. Gather Your Info. One easy way to do this is to give teachers sheets of paper to hand out, and for the students to take home, asking for names, numbers, birthdays, and whatever other information you would like to have included. It is important to realize from the outset that you are not going to get 100% participation from parents in this regard, and that you must respect the wishes of those who do not want their contact information listed. In these cases, find out if it is all right to simply list the student's name.

4. Put it All Together. Once you have the papers in hand of all who are going to participate, you can start entering sorting the information into your word processing software. It is probably best and easiest to list each class room separately, put the teacher's names and information first and in bold, and to list the rest of the students alphabetically by first or last name after that. If you are including administrators and other staff's information, you can put that in the front of the directory. Once you put all this together, you can decide on a cover. If the school has a logo, see if you can get hold of a digital version of it. It might also be fun to include little bits of clip art throughout the booklet.

5. Bind It. For larger projects and schools, you can take a look at binding styles such as plastic comb binding or spiral coil. The schools might even have these types of machines on hand for you to use. For smaller directories, you can use booklets makers that place two staples in the center of the documents. Again, there may be a chance that your school has these and will allow you to use them. A lot of these types of machines are relatively inexpensive to own, and can be used at home for future projects as well.