What to Do with School Papers and Artwork – A detailed Plan
The scenario plays out all across America for parents. The dreaded influx of school papers and artwork that get sent home at the end of each and every school year. Well, the memories themselves are priceless, but the “What on Earth am I to do with all this stuff” is the dreaded part. I both needed and wanted a plan to organize my kids’ school papers and artwork. More importantly, this plan needed to be easy!
With three kids, I was getting inundated with school papers and artwork each year. Now that my kids have gotten older, I began to realize that I could rent a small storage unit just to house all of their school papers and memories.
I ended up just purchasing some large bins and dumping these treasures in the respective bins each year without a second glance. They lived on some shelves in my garage, and they were only accessed once a year when it was time for more papers. Worse, they were so bulky and heavy, I even dreaded just getting them down to add to them!
I knew I needed to make a change because I did actually want to look at my kiddos memories every once in a while. So, I set out to tackle this and begin enjoying their memories instead of just patting myself on the back because I found a place to put them. You can to!
Gather All School Papers and Artwork
The first thing I did was to gather all of my kid’s stuff. This was pretty easy for me as I had already put their artwork in the garage in storage bins. However, if you have the artwork in different parts of the house, in your child’s room, etc., it is important to get everything in one place so that you know how much stuff you are working with.
Decide if School Papers and Artwork are Meaningful to you
This next and possibly most difficult step is to decide what actually means something to you. I found that I had literally just saved everything they brought home from each year. For example, I had handwriting booklets where my kiddos practiced their letters. This was not very meaningful to me, and I made the executive decision to recycle those items. Surprisingly, a huge sense of relief swept over me. I began to realize that every piece takes up space, and things can quickly become overwhelming if you keep everything. That is why this is the most important and most difficult step! Keep what is meaningful, and lose the guilt about recycling what isn’t!
Tips for Larger Pieces of Artwork and Trophies
I also found that some of the artwork was quite large. It was easy to trim down some of the borders and edges of pieces to make the items smaller and easier to file while still keeping the integrity of the piece. Also, with some of their larger projects (aka tri-fold displays), I took pictures of them and then recycled the original.
The same is true with trophies and medals. I had two heavy bins per child of trophies from Kindergarten on. I first checked with my kiddos to see if they wanted to keep these. They all didn’t care, so I took pictures of each of the trophies and you guessed it, got rid of them.
This was a very personal choice, and you may find that you would really like to keep these items. If that is the case, I recommend finding a spot to display them so that you can enjoy them! I found that what was important to me was having an image and being able to see their piece. Having the original caused me way too much stress.
I also discovered a service called ArtKive, which scans in your child’s artwork and puts it into a book for you to enjoy. I am so happy I did this! I picked my favorite pieces, organized them by year, and sent it in. They scan it, put it into a book format, and you can edit and rearrange if needed. All the artwork gets sent back when the project is finished, so you still have the original. I love looking through these books, and it is so much easier than getting out all of their work and looking through it! Also, glitter does not get everywhere as I think 90% of my kids’ artwork involved glitter!
Organize School Papers and Artwork By Year
Once you have downsized your collection, now it’s time to sort it all. I made different piles for Pre-K, Kindergarten, First Grade Etc. This will make the next step a breeze!
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Purchase Filing Materials
After everything was organized by year, I got some Iris File Boxes. I love that these are transparent and very sturdy. I also got hanging file folders in 3 different patterns, one pattern for each child. This makes it easy to look at the boxes and identify whose work is whose. You can make the boxes really fun with chalk labels with their names if you like. I just used my label maker and computer to further identify the boxes, and that worked for me.
File School Papers and Artwork
The last step is to file the artwork by year. I had much less to file because I had removed pieces that were not important to me. Also, removing extra paper and borders of their artwork made for much less paper. Every little bit helps!
Now that everything was filed, I did not have heavy bins that were gathering cobwebs in my garage. In fact, I was actually able to store my kid’s boxes inside my home office. I love having them inside so that I can enjoy looking at their memories instead of just storing their work. Artkive made a huge difference for me. Now that now that their work is so accessible, I am enjoying their work so much more!
Real Simple has a great article with some videos included. It has great tips on managing school papers. You can read it here: Organizing Schoolwork
There is no better time like the present. Now that you have a plan to organize school papers and artwork, I can’t wait for you to get started!
WHAT TO DO WITH SCHOOL PAPERS AND ARTWORK – A DETAILED PLAN
If you are even more motivated and want to organize ALL of your home paperwork, you can read my article on Organizing Paperwork here: How To Organize Paperwork; A Home Filing System that Works
