How to Organize Your Child’s Completed School Work

School aged children and school papers come hand in hand. What to do with this collection of papers is overwhelming to some, particularly those who like to keep every little piece of paper the child walks through the door with. This is a simple solution for storing and organizing completed schoolwork. This is handy for those who like to keep things on hand to scrapbook with later.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• Your child’s papers from school, including artwork that isn’t hanging on the fridge anymore.
• A shirt sized box with reinforced corners

1. Look everywhere - children like to stash papers in the strangest places. Gather all the school papers and organize them by date, if possible. If this method of organization is happening beginning with the first day of school, piece together a time line with the child as best as can be achieved.
2. Yes, it's as simple as a box. After the papers have been organized, find a shirt box and place them inside. This allows for larger pieces of paper to be stacked, as well as smaller art objects to be placed on the side of the box.
3. Leave room at one end for small pieces of art and other art objects collected. Each time the child brings home schoolwork that isn’t going to be hung up in the home somewhere, place it on top of the pile in the box. This keeps piles of papers from staking up everywhere, plus it allows for reverse chronological order.
4. Proper storage is very important. Store the boxes of papers (if multiple children are in the home, label each box appropriately with their name, age and grade) on the top shelf of a closet or up out the way somewhere. That way, no water damage can occur. At the end of each school year, go through the boxes and determine which papers should be kept and which should be tossed.

Tips & Warnings

• Encourage children to place their papers in the boxes for a lesson in early organization.
• Talk to children about preserving important memories and the plans for these papers later on.
• Keep the boxes up out of the way so they don’t dump out or get water damaged.
• If the boxes become too full too quickly, sort them out periodically throughout the school year.