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The Simplest Way to Organize Kids’ School Work and Keepsakes.

If you have a large amount of kids’ schoolwork, artwork, and other school keepsakes piling up somewhere in your home and are looking for a simple way to organize them all, this post is for you. It can feel like a hurricane of paperwork flies through your door each time you open it to let your child in. When you add all the general household paperwork that tends to pile up in a home, it can start to feel out of control quickly. 

Do You Want to Micro or Macro-Organize Your Kid’s Schoolwork?

If you love to organize and want your kids’ school work to be super (micro) organized, and don’t mind spending a lot of time on it, this post may not be for you. As a professional organizer with ADHD, I prefer to macro-organize my own children’s paperwork, because realistically, we likely will only be looking at these things very seldomly (at most).

It is more important to keep highly used areas organized, such as pantries and kitchens.  If you are looking for a simple way to organize kids’ schoolwork so that you can keep up with it as the years go by, read on.

Let’s start by discussing how much to keep and how much to toss. You know you want to keep and organize a select number of school keepsakes for your child to enjoy when they are older, but how much is enough?

Choose What Size Container to Use For Organizing Kids’ Schoolwork.

Your child’s school work can accumulate at light speed as they grow. Control the amount you keep by purchasing one tote for each child. Choose a size that you are comfortable with.

Choose a file storage bin, or a clear plastic tote that is about the size of a Banker’s box. Whatever size tote you choose, be sure is designed to hold vertical file folders. Let this tote set the limit for how much school paperwork and keepsakes are kept. 

Divide Your Child’s School Keepsake Tote Into 4-5 Sections 

Use a label maker or marker to label file folders as follows: Prek/Kindergarten, Elementary School, High School, and Other Keepsakes. The section labeled ‘Other Keepsakes’ is for memorabilia collected from activities that happen outside of school.

Activities such as Boy Scouts, baseball, and ballet classes are good examples. Optionally, you can also add a 5th section labeled Middle School. My children’s middle school was located at the same place they went to high school, so I chose to keep it simple and make 7-12th grade all high school. Do what makes the most sense to you.

If you are a busy family, it’s all about keeping things simple so you can keep up.  Minimizing how many sections you create will require less work on your part to set the tote up. It will also be easier for your child to maintain over the years. We’ll talk more about that below.

How To Manage All Incoming School Paperwork & Other Keepsakes During The School Year

Assign a small paperwork collection bin to each child. Be sure the bin is at least 9″ x 12″ to hold a standard-sized piece of paper, and 6-12 inches deep. Place this bin in an easily accessible location, a bedroom closet or a mudroom are good options.

Have your child drop all incoming school paperwork into the bin every day after school. Let the rest of it accumulate here until the end of the school year.  If the bin fills up, periodically sift through and toss out old assignments that don’t need to be kept.

I did this every 3 months or so to make more room in the bin. At the end of the year, your child’s bin should hold mostly just the school keepsakes and artwork that they may want to keep.

Each Summer, Make Organizing School Work & Keepsakes a Summer Project  For Your Kids.

Each summer, I made it a summer project for the girls to go through their school keepsake totes. They would add the new keepsakes from the current year. As their totes filled up, they would decide what they needed to let go of.

They would do this project together and actually looked forward to this project each summer. This is the perfect activity for those slow summer days when they complain about being bored. Even my daughter with ADHD enjoyed the project. The best part…I enjoyed not having to do this job myself.

It encourages self-sustainability to let your children take personal ownership of their keepsakes. They will appreciate your trust in them to do so. Let them know that they can keep whatever they want, as long as it fits inside the tote you selected for them.

What I Learned About Organizing Kids’ Schoolwork and Keepsakes as a Professional Organizer.

When my daughters were young, I spent many of their growing-up years feeling guilty. I fretted over not having time to preserve and organize my kids’ school keepsakes and other memorabilia perfectly.

Looking back, I also remember having high expectations. I wanted to create a beautiful, handmade scrapbook for every single year of each one of my children’s lives. I dreamed of filling them with photos, artwork, and other keepsakes to capture every memorable moment.

Let’s see, I did the math, and with three daughters, by the time they would each reach 18, I’d have made 54 scrapbooks… LOL!

Kind of lofty expectations, don’t you think?

You Can Let Go of The Guilt.

Fast forward several years, and I now know that these were seriously unrealistic expectations. I also know that when it comes to organizing school paperwork and keepsakes, it is best to keep it simple. And you need to keep a lot less than you might think.

My Empty Nester Clients Changed My Perspective Significantly.

Many of my clients who were empty nesters struggled with their adult children’s keepsakes, too. I would often hear, “My kids’ keepsakes are taking up too much of my storage space.” They are often surprised that their children are less interested in their childhood keepsakes than expected. Or my clients hear this, “I want it, Mom, but can you store it for me?“

Let’s take a look into the future for a moment.

If you spend too much time fussing over and saving every scribble your child brings home, like my clients, you too might also end up with a storage room full of your kids’ school keepsakes someday.

Here is what you need to know: if you save several totes worth of your kid’s school keepsakes and other memorabilia, you might just get stuck with it forever. Your adult child likely will be okay with taking a few keepsake totes to their own home someday.  But if you have multiple totes of keepsakes, it may be too overwhelming for them to take home.

Conclusion:

Set reasonable and easily attainable goals for keeping and preserving your kid’s school keepsakes and other memorabilia so that you can keep up as the years go by. Your child will be satisfied enjoying a sampling of childhood memories rather than an extensive collection of every experience they have ever had.

To get more school organizing tips to help your family stay organized and in control as the weeks go by, be sure to read my other post, “Top 10 School Organizing Routines for Stress-Free Family Mornings.”