{Organizing School Work}

How do you handle the mound of school work that comes home? I have only one kiddo, and I know I'm in the minority, so I always like to see what others do. There are tons of really cute and sensible ideas out there, so I thought I would share how we handle storing and keeping our school papers.

I start the year by keeping nearly EVERYTHING. And I mean everything. Unless it's a note for an event, it goes in this box:

It's a 12x12 scrapbook box that I got on sale for around $4. Don't worry...it's not the finished product. Although if you have ZERO time and 5 kids, it would be perfect...just cumbersome. :)

But I'm off-topic...so here's what I do next.

I keep everything in the box all year. At the end of the year, I go through everything and throw away A LOT. I keep about 25-30 important pieces of work or projects. All the newsletters and extra paper that has a blank back, we stash in our scrap paper pile in our office. 

Then I gather these supplies:

legal expandable envelopes with velcro or a cord

packing tape

computer/paper

I make up some labels listing the school year, my kiddo's age, the school, the teacher, and the location. You can use large labels for this, but honestly ours are stored in the attic. (We have a really cool walk-in attic that we go in and out of weekly, so we can access these anytime. Not a traditional attic.) I have found that labels in attics (over time) tend to peel with the variations in temperature, so I always use cardstock and packing tape instead. It just works better for me.:) It looks like this:

I add all the work I'm keeping, adhere the label, and file them in this nifty tote.

I love crate ideas...but that just means dust and crud to clean off for me, although they are so cute. A file box is another great idea, but maybe I keep too much, but we would fill that rather quickly. So this is our method, and it works great!

Thanks for stopping by,