Storing Kids Schoolwork

When I think about this topic, I find my heart starts to race and the anxiety sets in. I am typically a highly organized person with simple solutions to everyday issues that arise when raising 3 kids. This area though, makes me start to sweat! I always seem to fool myself into believing that I’ve got the system that is going to save me this school year. Only to feel overwhelmed by all the paper work come June. Here’s what I have set up curenntly

I have these Pottery Barn Kids Boxes. One for each child for each grade. What was I thinking? I started these when it was just my son and now there are 3 kiddos with 12 boxes each? seriously?

We have school work here

and here

art work here

and all this turns out to look like this when you add it up!

this doesn’t include baby books, baptism and 1st communion memorabilia, photo albums, 1st ballet recital tickets, 1st ski lift tickets, the separate file for report cards or evaluations and the list goes on and on.

Does this sound familiar to anyone? Or am I the only one being eaten out of my home by all this?

It’s time to revamp the system. First step is to take some time to answer the following questions:

how much space do i really have?

how much do i really need to keep?

what will the kids really like to see when they are all grown up?

what is my life like on a daily basis when all this stuff comes in to our home?

how much time do i really have to devote to this on an ongoing basis?

One trick that HAS really helped me in keeping up with it all, is a big plastic bin for all the kids for the whole school year. When something comes in that isn’t hung up (or after it has come down) we stash it in the bin. In June, after school is out, we decide what we are keeping and what we are tossing. This works well for me. It’s contained and waiting patiently for me and the kids to go through on a lazy summer day.

Another trick that helps me is that I keep the kids’ seasonal artwork with my seasonal decorations. For example, if a great fall painting comes home, I will store it with the fall and halloween decorations. These are so fun to pull out year after year and hang around the house. My oldest’s Handprint Turkey from a mommy and me class 7 years ago always makes us smile, especially now that he is about to turn 9! Since teachers always send home seasonal art and school work AFTER the holiday, it’s nice to have some of their work from the previous year DURING the holiday.

This is definitely cause for my first II part post.

Part I
take a look at what i have
decide on what’s realistic for me
research different systems
decide on one and conquer the paper

PartII
what i decided on
how i tackled it
what it looks like now

Part I

I definitely have too much. It’s not realistic for me to keep up a complicated system regularly. I do not have much space to store. A good system for me would be to have a spot to ‘drop and go’ during the school year and sort a bit in June or one that even eliminates the last step altogether!

I’m a natural purger. It is really easy for me to let go of ‘stuff.’ So why do I have a new version each year for each kid on The Life Cycle of a Butterfly!

This system from Sunny Side Up looks like it really works for her. There is a bin for the big stuff, a file box for the smaller things, and a photo/memory album for all the special moments.

This one from Real Simplelooks perfectly simple, but that’s a lot of bins!

Another great solution is from the blog Mama Loves Lists. This would be a great option for someone that is good about taking photos and making books since it seems she doesn’t keep much of the actual work, but rather archives it neatly in a file box and in photo books.

This one from i heart organizing could be the one for me.

Not sure I will ever get to the really cute and colorful labels, but the system seems easy to use and does not take up a lot of space. I will likely still keep one bin for each kid for only the really special larger or 3D pieces of work.

I’m going to give this one a shot! I’ll follow up with you after I attack this project.
Be sure whichever system I come up with – it will be simple!