Here’s a two-minute video featuring five tips for organizing the papers that tend to inundate our homes at the end of the school year.
Tip #1: Single Spot
Ask your children to place all of their papers in a single spot, as soon as they walk in the door from school. (We do this on a daily basis, and our “spot” is the left-hand corner of the kitchen counter. But at the end of the school year, we typically need the whole dining room table as a “spot” where everything can go to be sorted.)
Tip #2: Recycle
Initially do a quick sort of everything in your “spot”–recycling as many papers as possible. Most of them don’t need to be kept at all.
Tip #3: Use the Sneaky Sorter
Throughout the school year, you can keep two baskets in your kitchen, laundry room, or a nearby area, and use them to sort the papers you can’t immediately throw away. One basket is for the items you will most likely KEEP. The other is for items you will most likely THROW AWAY/RECYCLE. You don’t have to make these decisions right away, but these baskets help “incubate” your items in one of two general categories until you’re ready to deal with them. At the end of the school year, you may want to have children help you go through the items in your “KEEP” pile and those that have lingered in your “RECYCLE” basket and help you determine which are most special.
Tip #4: Use Banker Boxes for Permanent Storage
We give each child one banker box for every five years, so by the time they leave our home, they’ll have four boxes of school papers to take with them. If their papers don’t fit in the box, they have to figure out which ones can go. . . . (This has worked beautifully so far.) Some families find that it works well to help children create a binder for every 2-3 school years containing their most special items. At the end of each school year, children can sort through everything they’ve saved during the year or brought home at the end of the year and put their favorite school projects and keepsakes into page protectors, nicely organized in the binder.
Tip #5: Take Photographs!
At the end of the year, we always do a “photo shoot” of the art projects, dioramas, and sculptures that won’t fit into our boxes. Our children have fun modeling each item, and they typically take pictures of each other, so it’s a fun activity to keep them busy. (Digital photos are stored chronologically on our external hard drive.)
QUESTION: Do you have additional paper-sorting/keepsake-storing ideas you’d like to share? We’d love to hear them!
CHALLENGE: Resist the urge to let papers pile up, and work alongside your children to come up with a paper selection/storage solution that works for you family.
I love tip #5. The kids would have a great time and it reduces the pile tremendously.
Wow, Power of Moms is truly “deliberate” in its approach to mothering in all aspects. How I admire that you always have an efficient AND loving, thoughtful way to deal with everything, even paper overload! Thank you so much for all your gracious and generously offered articles, videos, audio broadcasts, seminars, etc; they truly make an amazingly positive difference in the world!
Great ideas, April! Those end-of-the-year papers are always so overwhelming. I especially like the sneaky sorters. I have kids in elementary, middle, high school, and two in college. I’m finding that once the kids have been off to college for a bit, they want to come home and sort through those saved boxes. I go through it with them, and give them input as they whittle down what they want to save. We take more pictures of some things they decide not to keep. Some I gently insist they keep, because I can imagine how fun it will be for them to share with their own children. Then, of course, they are adding on to the boxes with new mementoes from college.
Great tips. I have another tip to add. Click on this link to see how to get those papers off of your kitchen counter! http://organizedbyjenn.wordpress.com/wall-files/the-why-and-what-of-wall-files/
These are such great ideas! I do homeschool, but I’ve started to save some stuff from my kids and I just don’t have a place to put them. I need to start my boxes for the kids. I do take pictures and both kids will have a picture book of their letter crafts from age 2-3 that I will make for them.
You are nice to let them have a box for every 5 years! I have been using this method for years (My mom did this with me when I was a kid) and it is a huge clutter saver. Our family’s difference is they only get one box period! We move every 1-3 years and just can’t move all the papers. I find the kids are happiest if you sort on a trimester basis, They see their improvement and I don’t have to keep unwanted papers more than 3-4 months Usually all the papers for one year can fit into one manila envelope, which is then labeled and ready for scrap-booking. Now I do take a lot of pictures of artwork and they have an art portfolio that goes with their box. I find it is is the artwork they have the hardest time getting rid of.
In addition to memories, I would suggest keeping certificates, report cards, test scores in a file for each child. Clean it out occasionally, keeping what you think they may need someday. My kids poked fun at my file drawer until they became Juniors/Seniors and had to fill out college applications. Having their awards and info handy was helpful (and they didn’t have to weed through boxes of memories — which would be fun, but would take ME forever — too fun to reminisce).
We save the “take picture of it, or going to be thrown away artwork” dedicate them and send them in the mail to grandma and favorite aunts during the year or add to gifts.
I don’t save papers anymore at all. All of our scrapbooks are digital anyway so we take pictures of their best work and certificates and then get rid of everything. Thanks for the tips!
Thank you very much for sharing your organization April. I have 5 boys and papers are everywhere. I do something very similar to you minus the box step. I do take pics of those large projects and that helps them with the ability to “let it go” into the recycle. I take the box idea one step further. With the help of the kids, we decorate a cover page with class pics or best friends etc. of a 3 ring binder. We then 3 hole punch report cards, accolades, essays, drawings…when they come home on the last day of school– I give them their binder to go through. They usually love going through eachother’s binders. It’s been fun and it seems to work for us! I love reading all the other ideas, keep’em coming ladies!
LOVE your idea for the 3-ring binder! I think this is something we’ll do soon. 🙂
Another tip to add … all that beautiful artwork that you don’t want to keep, why not give it away to friends and relatives? Older people especially, love to receive artwork form kids! Keep a few in a folder to slip into cards that you make for people.
GREAT idea!!