In the last week of school, kids often bring home workbooks and art from school. Here are some ideas on what to do with kids school work and art.
If you kept every worksheet, drawing, spelling test, writing book and painting that came home from school, you’d probably need to extend your house to store it all! Even though some is done online now, there’s often still paper that is likely to come home, especially in the primary years.
By the time the kids are finished for the year, they’re likely to come home with a bag full of paper that needs to be sorted. My best advice for this is to buy a file storage box and some suspension files (ideally when they’re little, but it’s still worth doing when they’re older). This way, you can condense 13 years of schooling into one precious, easy-to-store box.
Here are my ideas on what to do with school work and kids art.
exercise books and scrapbooks
Exercise books and scrapbooks usually come home with some blank pages which can be reused. I suggest going through each exercise book and scrapbook and –
- Tear out any pages you’d like to keep – these might be stories they’ve written, drawings, pages with teacher feedback plus a selection of school work across subjects.
- Recycle any used pages you don’t want to keep.
- Put the blank pages that are leftover into your paper stash so it can be used for art over the holidays.
artwork
It’s amazing how much artwork little artists can produce! As wonderful as it is, it’s impossible to keep it all. Here are some ideas on what to do with it –
- Framed gifts – choose the very best ones and frame them for the wall or Christmas gifts for grandparents.
- Wrapping paper – family members will love to receive their Christmas gift wrapped in a special piece of artwork.
- Take a photo – if you can’t store it all but can’t bear to part with it, take some photos of the artworks which can be included in family albums.
- Save the best – store your favourite artworks in a storage box such as this one.
test / exam results
Decide which ones you want to keep – I always kept the ones with the best and the worst results. Why the worst? I think it’s great to keep a ‘warts and all’ record of their schooling years!
Kat’s tip: As well as saving your digital report cards, it’s a good idea to print these out as well and storing them in your file storage box. You can also store certificates and memorabilia such as sporting ribbons, awards and certificates here as well, plus artwork they’ve done at home and school photos.
workbooks
Save any pages that are special to you and recycle the rest of the book.
Once you’ve got your storage box, this task can be done quickly and easily each year and you’ll always know where to find the kids’ schooling memorabilia.
