Overwhelmed with Your Children's Schoolwork?!

How I organized my children's sentimental schoolwork and more.

 

picture from northtexaskids.com

As you know I have two lovely children.  They create the most wonderful and meaningful artwork, drawings, and handwriting.  As the proud momma that I am, I just know they will continue to have major milestones and achievements throughout childhood and their school years. 

Last year was the first year both kids were in school.  I was being bombarded with papers, drawings, homework and notes.  I am so proud of all that they are learning, but I was running out of places to put these great pieces of work.  Plus, on numerous occasions we have gone through mine and my husbands school work from our childhood and the kids get seriously excited.  I had to find a solution to being able to keep what they thought was invaluable.

So, with the combination of my "OCDelightfulness" and Pinterest I found a way to keep my children's "important" papers.  With hopes that in the future they can share it with their kids.  Or toss out, whichever they choose, but at least I did my part.

Okay, so the kids come home, take off their shoes and dump out their backpacks onto the kitchen counter.  Ugh!  Where to begin.  I go through each of their piles and throw out what we do not need.  They bring home monthly reading logs, spelling words, and the lunch calendar.  Where are we supposed to put those for an entire month, while remembering to fill them out daily (or weekly)? 

Ah Ha!!!

 

I took two 3M hooks, clothespins (pink for my daughter and blue for my son), and clothesline.  This is in my office and at an accessible height for both of the kids.  When they need to fill in one or more of the sheets they can do so on their own.  It is off my counters and desk, it has been a perfect solution.  This plan could also work wherever the kids do their homework or wherever you have enough wall space.

Okay, now onto ALL the other papers that they have!!!  I used to keep the papers in with their other "keepsakes" but that was not a great solution, so on PINTEREST I found how I was going to get these kids papers in a place that they could be saved. 

Bins, colored coded for girl and boy, of course.  Hanging files, file folders, labels, and SUPER cute templates found on iheartorganizing.blogspot.com. 

Here they are!!!

***I needed 2 file bins, 17 hanging files,  17 file folders, and 17 labels for each child. 

 

I purchased the file bins from Office Depot for around $13.  That is pricey but I needed to have these particular colors, you will find out why at the end of this post.  You can easily use bankers boxes, cardboard file boxes, or clear file boxes from Target.  I purchased the hanging files, file folders, and labels from Walmart.

 

There is a file for each of the following:

• Miscellaneous
• Baby ( I included their baby book too)
• Karate (for my son) and Gymnastics (for my daughter)
• Pre-K
• Kindergarten
• First through Twelfth

I know the files will become less full as they get older and their drawings are not as "cute" but I am sure I will still have achievements and such to put in.

Below I provided the links for the FREE printable template for the labels and a cover sheet for each grade.  I made my own labels for the misc, baby, and karate/gymnastics. 

These are courtesy of another useful and great blog iheartorganizing.blogspot.com. 

Template for Labels

Cover sheet Printable

Here is this fantastic app that I use for keeping kids artwork that is just too big.  You can take a picture of it, save it and share it.  You can also make a photobook out of all the artwork you save on this app...Artkive artkiveapp.com







I also keep their professional photos from birth thru school year in their own individual 8x10 scrapbooks. These books are from Michael's and you can purchase additional pages so you can keep adding photos.  It is a great way to keep the pictures in order and damage free.  It is also fun to see the transformation from year to year in only a turn of a page.  ***I put this in the file bin just so everything is in one place.

 

Yet, another OCD organizational thing I do with more kid

"stuff"...

 

 

My kids have many "keepsakes" that are not in paper form.  They also have sentimental toys and clothing that they do not use anymore, but I could not part with.  So, I bought large Rubbermaid bins (with extras for the future so they all match) in Purple and Blue for my daughter and son.  These are in storage and whenever I need to add something to their bins I can easily find them.   

Did you notice that the File Bins MATCH the Rubbermaid Bins?!  Hmmmmm... I have a method to my madness!!!

 

 

Everything is in its place and the kids can continue to make masterpieces while not becoming clutter.

 

Doesn't this make you HAPPY?!