Keeping Your Child's School Work Organized

If you have young school age children then you know what it is like to have your child come home from school each day with a handful of crafts, art work, papers, quizzes, and homework.

We often come across children’s school papers and art work stuffed in boxes, unorganized, and stored in our clients’ storage rooms or basements and our clients often ask us: “What do I do with all of this and how do I keep it organized?”

It’s okay not to keep every single thing your child comes home with. We suggest you sort through it all and just keep your favourite items. Here are some items you may want to hang onto: special art pieces, crafts, important tests/quizzes, report cards, hand written stories, holiday pieces (Mother’s Day/Father’s Day, Christmas, birthday etc.) and any special notes or awards.

Okay so we have a list of suggested things to keep, now how do we suggest you keep it organized? Rather than keeping them stuffed in a box or container with no order, we’ve come up with a few fun and easy ways to keep it organized. Each method is practical, organized and easy to store.

Create a school memory box

- These boxes are usually found at stationary stores like Staples or big box stores like Walmart
- Label the outside of the container with your child’s name on it
- Use hanging file folders and label each folder kindergarten to grade 12
- You can also add additional files relating to your child if you wish e.g. health records, birthday parties and sports
- Put everything you collected from each grade including class pictures in each file
- Keep everything in each file organized e.g. crafts together, stories together, notes together
- We also recommend that you use photo sleeves, sheet protectors or even laminate items to help protect them

Check out step by step instructions on how to complete your memory box at https://diyvibes.net/diy-memory-box/

Use Large Binders

- If possible, use one large binder per child and include all school years in the one binder
- Decorate binder with your favourite scrapbook paper or create a fun title page for the cover
- Put your child’s name on the front & spine
- Use a labelled divider for each year from Kindergarten to Grade 12
- Use photo sleeves and sheet protectors to help organize and protect your child’s precious items
- All of these items can be picked up at stationary stores (Staples) or big box retailers (Walmart, Dollarama)

We like the binders that Your Modern Family created and they have some cute downloads too!
https://www.yourmodernfamily.com/organize-school/

organizeing-school-work-binders

Take a picture!

- For larger items or bulky crafts (think macaroni pictures) that won’t easily fit in your storage bin/binder, why not snap a picture of it with your child? It’s a great way to capture the memory and you can create an online album (ex: in Google photos, create an “artwork” album for each child) of their creations. You can also print the pictures and add them to the appropriate section in your child’s bin/binder or create a photo book online and print one for each year!

Create a scrapbook

- It is a great way to bring out a decorative book and look over your child’s wonderful memories. This method can be more time consuming but can also be very relaxing and you will be organizing your child’s treasures at the same time!

We would love to hear how you store your child’s school work, crafts and papers. Do you have a favourite organizing solution or app that you use to keep track of all the important school milestones? If so, leave a comment below!

Until next time,
Kathy

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