When I was growing up, my mom saved samples of my schoolwork. Now that I am a mom myself, I can appreciate what she saved for me. It is fun going down memory lane now with my daughter to show her what I did as a child. I knew that once she began school I wanted to do the same for her.
I thought that once my daughter was in school I would love going through her folder and be able to easily pick out what I should keep. This will be easy! No problem for me, said this first time mom. Except I felt like I should keep everything.
I thought that once my daughter was in school I would love going through her folder and be able to easily pick out what I should keep. This will be easy! No problem for me, said this first time mom.
The first Friday Folder I went through didn’t seem so bad. She had a few papers in it. I saw that she was starting to practice writing her name and others showing us that she had practice gluing. It was our time as mother and daughter to sit and talk about school. I thought I’d just file them away and go through and decide what I will keep later. Then came the next one with more papers, and I filed them away. As we got more into the school year, we got busier. I kept filing every week on top of the previous week. I thought I would be able to sort the currently filed papers during a break, but that never happened.
Now I am sitting here in May with school about to let out for summer. I finally realized I managed to save every paper that came home in a Friday Folder from preschool. The small designated file bin moved to a bigger storage bin.
A whole year’s worth of schoolwork is overwhelming when everything is displayed at once. However, it might actually make deciding easier, now that I can physically see everything in front of me. Although this wasn’t my idea at the beginning of school, it worked for me to sort through everything at once. Maybe not a time saver, but it’s working for me.
Here is how I determined what to keep or toss.
What to keep?
Anything with hand or foot craft
Varies handwriting samples from beginning, middle, and end of year
Parent-Teacher Conference papers
First day of school craft
Story writing
Holiday projects
What to do with the rest?
I can’t just toss everything without keeping some kind of record of it. I took pictures of each drawing, painting, or letter craft I would want to keep, but have no room for. This way I don’t have to keep the storage bin and my original file bin can actually serve its purpose of keeping schoolwork from each grade for her.
Now with one year under my belt I will be prepared for Kindergarten.
Do you keep your child’s schoolwork? What is your method to the madness?
