Tips for Organizing Your Child’s School Papers
Does your jaw drop when you see the massive amounts of papers your kids bring home from school? It starts from the very first day of school.
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First Day of School = Homework for Mom
Tips for Organizing Your Child’s School Papers
Decide each day what you will keep and throw away. Kids bring home massive amounts of papers each day, you have to decide then and there what you are going to keep or throw away. You have to detach from your sentimental side when it comes to keeping papers. Keep the papers you believe your child will value in 10-15 years.
Art is always something to keep. You have the alphabet papers, but then you also have the artistic projects that are brought home. I never hesitate to keep the art that my kid’s bring home.
Keep important papers in a folder where you can find it. Each day that I go through my kid’s papers I always pull out the paperwork with an important date on it. I put the papers in my binder and then I write the date on the family calendar. I don’t want to accidently misplace these important papers, so I do double duty and put all of the important papers in one spot and add it to the paper calendar. If I’m feeling incredibly organized, I will also add the important events to my electronic calendar.
Sign important papers right away. When my kids come home with important papers, I make sure to sign them and put them back in their school folder. This keeps me from forgetting and it ensures my kids have all of their papers signed right away.
Decide what organizational system works best for you. No organizational system works in the same way for every parent. That’s why I encourage you to find what works for you. After I’ve decided which papers to keep, I put them in a folder based on what year of school my child is in. If the folder gets too full, then I know it’s time to ditch some of the papers. You can get as creative and organized as you’d like with this step.
We have a wall organizer and everyone has a pocket – anything of importance from school that doesn’t just need to be written on the calendar and highlighted goes in Owen pocket. Everything else…recycling bin. (ie: pizza day schedule: on the calendar, book order forms: in the pocket)
I feel bad when I toss his little activities and some artwork, and try to bury it in the recycling bin so he doesn’t see it and get upset. But….if it’s not useful or like a specific achievement or something really badass, i’m not keeping it