School has been back in session for a few weeks in most parts of the country, so you’ve likely been bombarded with endless papers from school. No matter how “green” your particular school is there still seems to be a steady stream of papers flying in and piling up. So, what can you do to keep the paper piles down without tossing out cherished school memories?

1.       Have a system. I know this seems quite obvious, but if you don’t have a system that works in place you will lose important papers, bills, and maybe even your mind when you try to find something in the pile or stacks of papers. Start now because the problem only increases with the addition of each child who goes off to school.

 

2.       Set a time to review papers. In our house we take care of our paperwork during homework time. It’s also a great time to spend one-on-one time with each child. I’ll start one child on her homework and ask her to save up questions for me when it’s her turn. (This also helps them to problem solve independently. A lot of times they have fewer questions for me in the end.) While she’s busy working on math or spelling I review the contents of my other child’s folder. We review previous work that has been corrected and discuss what things she’s working on at school and identify areas where she needs extra help.

 

I toss out papers we don’t need and fill out any papers that require my attention and put those back in the folder immediately. In some cases, these papers require another step so I will place them in my “immediate” to do folder. Other items go on a magnetic clip that I have on the side of my fridge (i.e. year-long school calendars, important contact phone numbers, the monthly lunch calendar, etc.)

 

It’s usually easier to just fill out the permission slip right away or add important dates in my electronic calendar immediately. My children often times try to buck this system and throw papers at me while they mumble things like, “My teacher said, you must fill out the permission slip and give me $5 or else I can’t go on the fieldtrip.” But they’ll choose inopportune moments when I can’t give them my full attention and all I hear is, ““My teacher said…you must…$5…or else…”  I make them stick to the designated time and ask them to put the papers back in their folders so they don’t get lost in the interim.

 

3.       Keep or toss. I try to keep samples of their early handwriting or fun stories they conceive and write, as well as other samples of sentiment. It’s really up to you, but you have to discriminate or else you’ll never win the war against the paper monster. I also try to put the child’s name, age, and date on the back of whatever it is I’m keeping in case things get mixed up along the way. You can also take photos of your children showing off their large projects, like the poster board from the science fair,  to hold to the memory of the job well done and feeling less guilty about tossing it out.

 

4.       Enjoy the artwork. Young children come home with an exceptional amount of art projects. They are sweet and make you smile and some of them should be held onto and enjoyed. I tried to find a place to highlight our children’s accomplishments and then develop a system for safekeeping. We place many of our masterpieces on the fireplace mantle or the fridge to show them off. After a period of time special accomplishments are then transferred to what I call “dry storage.”

 

5.       Set up your own “dry storage.” Each of my children have individually labeled baskets tucked away on a top shelf. This is where I put their favorite masterpieces and cute notes they write to me or each other. I let the basket fill up and then we sort through the basket at the end of the school year and decide which pieces we must keep. The items we keep go into a file box that is labeled and stored in the garage until they’re old enough to take them to their own homes. Keep in mind that when you someday try to pawn these boxes off on them they will not want 12 boxes of stuff (one for each grade) so you have to be conservative in what you keep. It may be wise to combine several grades in one box. My kids actually enjoy sorting through their work from the previous year and seeing how much they’ve learned, grown, and changed. It’s a fun way to cap off the end of a great year. As we put the empty basket on the shelf it’s exciting to think of all of the possibilities for the upcoming year.

Question: What are your tried-and-true methods for keeping school papers in check?