Any parent would probably agree that school papers are the culprit for most of the paper pile ups at home. Now that school is out I have been sorting through last years school papers and getting them organized.
When the papers first come in I always do a quick view to see what I want to keep or what needs immediate action then toss the rest.
Dealing with your child’s papers certainly is one of the more emotional tasks you have to tackle when it comes to letting go. You are handling their school aged milestones.
Personally, I like to see how their handwriting and coloring has changed over time. Those pictures my kids create with their hand prints get me every time. Not only are they creating art but you can see how much they are growing by their hand prints.
Here is a quick and easy solution for tackling school time papers…
1. As papers come in make sure you are keeping them separated by child in a folder or box so you can easily decipher what belongs to who.
2. At the end of the year sit down with the papers, a trash bag, digital camera, or scanner.
3. Choose what pieces of art you want and take a picture or scan then into your computer.
4. Throw away the paper after you are done taking a picture.
For me this system has made things so much easier to be able to get rid of those papers. Now I won’t have to worry about them yellowing over time or taking up space. I can create a beautiful digital memory book for each child to showcase their creations.
You can also have fun with this, you don’t have to save every single piece of work they have done. Think of creative ways to showcase their work. I’ve decided that instead of taking a picture of each letter they have learned to write I will take a picture of the letters in their name and create a photo montage for one page of a book. Instead of documenting all of the colors they have learned take a picture of their favorite. Same with shapes. Since my preschool aged son is 4, I took pictures of the papers where he started writing the number 4. You can document age or year this way.
Tell me your thoughts…
How do you organize your school time papers?
What do you think about digitizing your child’s art?
For the full series click here… Paper Less Living: Simple Solutions For Downsizing Your Paper Pile Up
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When we move in a few weeks, we’re going to begin the scanning process. I can see myself using shutterfly to make an album after a few years worth of goodies pile up.
I’m really not very sentimental, so I keep very, very little of my kids’ art, but I do take pictures of most of it and include those in our monthly picture archives. Then we give the originals away to the grandparents!
Good post – I love the idea of scanning & photos. The hardest part is convincing kids that every single paper is not critical to their survival.
I did a post a while ago about creating a binder to keep this stuff (similar to your folder above) which has been helpful for my daughter to make decisions about what she wants to keep, “is it worthy” of the binder?
We also live in a very small house with little storage and when you have a prolific artist and writer – you do need to be picky and prioritize. It’s getting the kids on board that can be tough but in this digital age I think it’s much easier – they can always see the work on the computer – and if they are involved in the process – it can make it much easier. My daughter loves to scan and take photos so this is a great tip for us!
[img]http://completeorganizingsolutions.com/wp-content/upload/art binder 009.JPG[/img]
It’s also interesting to see how different each child can be. When I mentioned taking pictures of the art my oldest son didn’t think twice about tossing the physical papers. My youngest son has to hold them and think it through and talk about each one. Having a binder for him might be necessary for him as a first step to the process. It could be an age thing but my youngest son is more prone to “collecting” things where as the older one didn’t. That is a post in itself!
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