How to Organize School Papers Once and For All (Updated Sept 2021)

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How to Organize School Papers
It's been several weeks since school has begun.  Are you drowning in papers?  When your kid dumps out her backpack do shudder in anticipation of a giant pile of worksheets mixed in with important papers?  Is it stressful?  Are you sweating just thinking about it?  I think you'll agree that there has to be a better way.  Below, I give you every step and there's even an infographic that you can print and post in your home to go through with your child.

Here's the good news:  There IS a better way.

And it's cheap and easy!

This originally posted on JenBorn.com
(reposted with permission)

If your kids aren’t school-aged, you don’t understand, but there is a DELUGE of paper that comes home with kids EVERY DAY.  (Or worse, if there’s a suspicious lack of papers, that means a TIDAL WAVE is coming as soon as your kid's teacher discovers he or she has been cramming it all in a sad, sad desk at school.)

This 1 trick will cost you a whopping $0.20 per kid and save you endless frustration when dealing with school paper clutter.

  1. Buy 2 folders per kid
  2. Put 1 folder, labeled for the kid, in a place where he/she knows NOT to mess with it.  This is Mom’s folder of papers for the year.  Special stuff.  Sweet stuff.  Beautiful artwork.  Terrific grades.  Awards.  (I don’t even use the pockets, just place everything in chronologically.)
  3. Put 1 folder, labeled for the kid, in a place where he/she HAS ACCESS to it.  Bookshelf?  Desk?  Maybe even next to yours.  This folder is for your kid to put papers he/she wants to keep.  They are special to him.  (Even if they are only partially colored.)  When this folder is full, have her CLEAN IT OUT.  What papers do you not care about anymore?  Keep what’s important.  Make room for other stuff.

To get the infographic, click here or on the image below. When you print, make sure to adjust the scale so that it prints properly.  And here's a black and white version for those of us in the dark ages without a color printer.

Related: Before/After School Checklist

Related: Make Going Back to Work WORK

Daily

How this conversation goes on a daily basis as we process their papers:
Me: Ok, here’s your stack.  Either put it in your folder or the trash.
Kid: OK
(Kid sorts through stack)
Kid: Where’s [beautiful artwork or worksheet with amazing grade]?
Me: I put it in Mommy's folder of special things
(Kid beams ecstatically with pride)
The end.
Sometimes, they want me to put a paper in Mommy's folder that I'm not going to keep.
Kid: Here Mommy, you can put this into your folder.
Me: Oh, no thanks. If you want to keep that, put it into your folder.
Kid: Don't you think my picture is beautiful?
Me: ABSOLUTELY! It IS beautiful! But Mommy is in charge of her folder. So if you want to keep it, put it in your folder.
We also have a wall in our dining room where we showcase kid art.  We use reusable putty to stick the art on the wall so I'm not constantly rolling tape.

Teaching Points:

  1. There are things to be proud of keep for special reasons.  Let’s celebrate those!
  2. We aren’t going to keep everything.  We don’t need to and it’s impractical to manage.
  3. It’s good to purge periodically.  For everyone of all ages.  Period.  Have them go through their folder or drawer space every couple of days or weekly and choose a low number (1-10) of items to toss.  Or give them a max number of total papers allowed and work within a 1 in-1 out rule.
  4. We can work in a system with finite space.  Let’s figure out how to accomplish a goal within a given set of rules.
  5. We aren’t going to have HUGE amounts of paper floating through the house. Because that’s awful!  (And my kids tend to start shredding paper if they’re left alone with it for any length of time!)
  6. It helps us get past the "I'll do it later" mentality.  Make quick decisions to categorize each paper, put them away, and you're done!

From an early age, we can start seeing that our child is becoming a "pack rat"--having trouble letting go of items she doesn't really want or need.  This can even happen with school papers.  We can help them with this so they don't struggle their whole lives.

Related: 10 Apps to Organize Your Life

Other Options:

The Box Method

How it works: Put everything (except announcements) into a box and go through it at the end of the year, or occasionally.

Pros:

- You don't have to make any decisions now, when your child might feel emotionally attached to the paper
- You won't have to argue with your kid about any of it
- You won't accidentally throw something important away

Cons:

- You have to go through all of the papers every day anyway in case there's something urgent. So you're basically doing double duty.
- It will take up a lot of space, especially if you do this method for several children
- And it will have to be fairly accessible since you'll be putting papers into it 5 times/week
- You'll have to go through it at the end of the year when you are totally OUT of school energy. Yuck.

 

Dealing with Grownup Papers

Our school sends home paper newsletters for each grade. These are helpful communications about any calendar events, classroom activities, and the schedule for rotating specials (PE/music/art).  With multiple kids in school, keeping these on the fridge was NOT working.  And there are also flyers for different school-wide events, notes home about meetings and announcements.

There are a LOT of important papers that we need to keep (for a few days at a time at least) and we want them to be organized so that we don't lose our mind.

We made a wall in our kitchen our Command Center.  It. Is. AMAZING. We love it so much!

See the hanging file organizer. It is so wonderful!  We can keep the newsletters in one slot, school-wide flyers in another slot, and still have slots for things like Girl Scouts and other papers we have to store.

Do you have a school papers system that you LOVE? What tips and tricks do you have to share? Tell me in the comments!

For more on issues like this, check out our Making Life Work and Parenting Hacks boards.

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6 thoughts on “How to Organize School Papers Once and For All (Updated Sept 2021)”

  4. These are great ideas! We’re just entering school age here, with our oldest having just started virtual kindergarten. So far, I have her folder of all her stuff her teacher sent her (things she’ll use on a regular basis), and when she completes activities, I move them to a large manila envelope for each quarter.

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