Parents: How to Organize School Papers

School is back in session now after the holiday break, and once again my house is littered with school papers!

My Kindergartener brings home an average of seven papers every day. My preschool-age daughter brings home about 10 papers a week. During the Christmas break, I was able to sort through the umpteen million piles of papers. But I found it impossible to keep up once they started bringing more home. And what do I do with the papers once I know which ones I want to keep?

I talked with a few parents, and I have come up with a relatively inexpensive system to help keep me from being buried under school papers.

Ream Boxes

Go to your local newspaper or copy shop and ask if they have the boxes that will hold approximately one ream of paper. These are excellent for storing about a week's worth of papers. They are usually white, so your child can help decorate them, plus they come with a lid. If those boxes are not available, then a box designed to hold 500 business envelopes will work too.

To prepare the boxes, write the child's name on the top of the lid and on at least two sides, so the name is visible when stacked. Let your kids decorate with crayon, marker, stickers, glitter, etc. Allow them to make those boxes their own.

Here's how we use them. Every evening we sit down at the kitchen table and look through all the papers. We do this as a family, which gives me the opportunity to comment and praise them for their efforts. Then I hand the kids their papers, and they put them in their own box.

At the end of the week, go through the papers and decide which ones to keep. If possible, involve the children in this process, especially if they are older. My three-year-old girl panics when something of hers gets tossed, so it's not practical to involve her in this step. Use your own judgement.

Have a three-hole punch handy, because that brings us to the next step in organization: preserving those special memories.

Three-ring Binders

Choose a large binder for each child, because you will want it to last as many years as possible. Use the dividers to indicate the grade. Then simply use a three-hole punch and insert the special papers into the binder.