School Papers Overrunning My House.

that is something no one ever told me about preschool...the first couple weeks i was SOO thrilled and touched and just in love with everything he brought home...now 2 years later i'm like oooooh great. lol. i throw them away when he's not looking otherwise he will get upset. and i do keep a few of the really cute ones. especially like the mothers day crafts and things that he has filled in with his thoughts (they had one "poster" they made and she filled in his answers to questions like, "my favorite place is," etc super cute!)

Do you have grandparents, aunts, uncles, neighbors, anyone who lives further away to send them to? Might teach your child about "snail mail" process and it might be fun if they respond and he/she gets mail in return! :-)

As a kindergarten teacher, I would get MANY drawings from students. I hung them for a week or two and then took them down to make room for more. I usually recycled them...

But I like the idea of involving the child in the recycling process. That tells them that there isn't room to keep EVERYTHING (and will translate to toys, clothes, and other objects of theirs when you go through things before a rummage sale). They get to help decide what stays and what goes - it will tell you which projects THEY think were the most important. You could get a really cool project and want to keep it because it looks nice, or you could get a clay pile and they want to keep the clay pile because they had more fun and that was more meaningful to them. :-) Do they have a playroom? Hang them up in the wall in there and when you run out of space, then they have to decide which of their works they will take down in order to hang the new one up.
:-) Good luck! :-)

Like everyone else, I am overwhelmed too. I did like the poem that she hand wrote at the beginning of the school year where the small letter "a" looked like a capital Q, so I will probably keep that. The rest of it can go in the trash.

Our recycle bin is right by the back door, the 6 yr old and I make it a game as to how much/many papers we can fit in it each week.
We go through her book bag every day which is followed by her saying "can we put this one in", "can we put this one in" and so on.
It is a bit overwhelming though.

I scan or take pictures of all projects and keep those on the computer. I do keep a few projects, but not many. The projects that are bulky usually go straight in the trash after a picture. I do a photo book each year and usually stick a couple of project pictures/scans in there.

My rule was if it has a hand/foot/finger print or photo on it, I kept it...otherwise it was trashed. I have several meaningful and very cute projects that are framed and on display to this day, so embarassing now that they are teenagers!

I take pictures of the ones I like most. For the seasonal/holiday art pics, I keep those in a scrapbook for my son. He loves to look at what he did in school through the years. The rest, I toss.

Our school has a recycle paper program and lots of it goes RIGHT back to the school!

What I've done is I've bought a flat bin for each school year and the important stuff goes in there...the rest--recycle bin!

I have an "in basket" where I collect weekly papers, and papers that I have to keep handy for information, and then it's sorted and either goes in the "keep bin" or to the recycle paper bag.

I scan in cute stuff before I recycle it. Maybe a few pages a month, and I take pictures of art that's not scannable. My boys like to watch slideshows of their work over the years.

check on pinterest--there are all kinds of cute ways to display their stuff. Even a simple scribbled colored page cut into shapes and framed can be a beautiful addition to a room decore.

I keep my favorites, do the laminte paper on ones that I can and put them in a binder but MOST go in the garbage. They get a day or two on the fridge really good ones a week then its buh-bye time!

My sister tore out a section of each and made a paper mache type collage of them - they were like 1x2 or something - some larger but most small and she made it on big poster boards and then hole punches them and binds them together with ribbons - she plans to do this until she graduates :).

take pictures and use the file as your screen saver. That way the kids get to see their "art" and you do not have to keep tons of stuff. I did keep a few originals, but mostly just photos. We keep all the report cards and official school paperwork in a folder for each child. For the years that are finished I only keep the last one, since it contains all the info from all the quarters before.

We have a similar problem! I keep various corkboards in our office hung up, one for each child. I put up things like the newest newsletter, coming up events, reminders, etc. on there. I have a filing drawer for each child as well, where I put older items in case I need to reference them some time.

As for the art work, I hang up the newest ones from our kitchen counter so that we can enjoy them for awhile, then I recycle some and keep a few for a scrapbook that I have for each child. It can get overwhelming at times, but this helps me keep track of the important things. Best of luck to you!

This has happened to me. And you will start realizing that most of it is nothing. Especially when you have no idea what it is. So I started to keep the things that were very important and super special. But I started scanning or taking pictures of them. I figured I'll have enough for one of those photo books to "publish". I can give them back their work without all the clutter. Everything goes in a file for each kid. I have gone through that file and tossed stuff after about 6 months. When time passes you are not so attached to the scribbles.
Good luck taking back your home.