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School Years File Organizers

My daughter brings home massive amounts of papers each week from school.  I don’t keep everything, but it’s amazing how it all still piles up!  Her handwriting is so adorable right now, so I end up storing lots of those sweet papers where she is learning to formulate sentences and describing things that she enjoys doing right now.  I also just love and cherish the cute little books, paintings, and other creations that she makes in art class, and I would never throw those away.

So…what to do with all of it?

Well, here’s a simple, yet pure genius solution that I found on Pinterest.  Why didn’t I think of this?

I grabbed some plastic organizers from Office Depot.  I couldn’t resist the hot pink one for my daughter.  Lucky for me, the store was going out of business and I got both of these puppies for $8!  Bargain!  I also bought some colored folders…enough for each year of school, including the pre-school years (ages 0-4).  I’ll probably end up needing more folders…especially for the beginning school years.

Then I labeled the plastic bins (with my Silhouette cutter) and folders, stuck the papers in and bam!  It’s organized!

Now we have a place for all those fun things that she brings home from school over the years.  It’s a perfect place to keep her school pictures and awards too!

I made one for my son also.  Even though he’s not in school yet, he still produces lots of masterpieces that I want to keep for posterity’s sake. 🙂

How do you organize your kids’ paperwork and precious creations?I’d love to hear what works for you.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Oh, this tugs at my heart strings because I have a Natalie, too. She loves her papers and hates it when they get thrown away. This project would help her keep the most important ones without driving us crazy with papers everywhere! I know our readers would love this, too. We have a weekly link up party going on now (Thursdays), and we would love to see this post and/or any others you would like to share at allthingswithpurpose.com. Hope to see you soon!

  2. I've quickly learned how school papers can overtake everything, so this is a pretty awesome idea! Thanks for linking up at Whatever Goes Wednesday. We'll be featuring your project this weekend and we'd love it if you stopped by.

  3. Great idea! We have a box, but not the files for the years. That might help us contain it to less papers.
    I would love if you would share this at my link party. http://www.realcoake.com/2013/03/real-family-fun-7.html
    Take care,
    KC

  4. Hi Christine!

    This is a brilliant idea, really. I stopped by here from the Sundae Scoop, and I was drawn to the organizational bit--when I have kids this is definitely how I will organize their stuff. I think my parents "organized" my school stuff by putting the artsy crafty stuff in a big storage box (i.e. no organization) and keeping stuff like standardized test scores in a file with my birth certificate, passport, social security card, etc. Come to think of it, I'm not sure what happened to all my artwork!! Anyway, have a lovely weekend!

    Hugs,
    Gabby

    www.essentiallyeclectic.com

  6. I need to do something like this too. Even at 19 months, my son is already bringing home his little pieces of art that I want to save!

  7. I really need to get a Silhouette...These look great! I’d love it if you’d link up to The DIY’ers link party. http://homecomingmn.blogspot.com/2013/04/the-diyers.html

  8. This a great idea. The start is to have a "home" for everything. They look great too. Having older children now I see the value of having access to things in one place when you need them.....employment resume, college applications, etc. Read my post on keeping a binder for awards.
    http://www.thelostapron.com/2012/08/keeping-childrens-awards.html

  9. I love the idea of a name and color-coded storage, Christine! :* Every end of school year is the only time I get to realize how much papers my kids have brought home. It would've been easy to just scoop them all into the trash, but I can't as that would mean throwing just like that all their hard work. I think this would work while they're still in grade school!
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