Deciding What Completed Classwork to Keep

Hi T.,
My daughter had tons of projects too. I framed her artwork and displayed it all over the house and in her room. Its unique ,looks great and my child is proud of it. We save the rest of important projects in a waterproof box and store it in the basement. One day she will look back and see what she did as a child. Its sort of her diary of school life.

One mom I know scans all the homework into the computer and saves a digital copy. Then she puts it in a box, and leaves it there for the whole school year. At the end of the year or start of the next one, she goes through the box and it is easier to weed through it and pick favorites because a little bit of time has gone by. Plus you can see better how they developed and whether they got on a flower kick and pick the best, or easily see which graphing piece represents all of the work the best. She also uses a lot of pieces as homemade cards.

I would say hold on to the really special pieces (stuff you could frame and hang) and scan the rest into your computer if you have a scanner...that way you can look at it whenever you want, but it's not taking up space in your house.

I completely understand! And the other moms are right, 1st grade isn't as bad. I think mostly because the newness of having a child in school is gone and we're not as prone to save every piece of artwork. For a lot of my daughter's work, I take a picture of it and that way I'll still have it, but it doesn't take up as much room! :) Some of the artwork, I do keep, like the one my daughter did and got "artist of the month" or for their art gallery event at school, or ones that are really special because it's something we did as a family. Hope this helps a little!

when my daughter was in Kindergarten the teacher made memory books. Basically a 3 ring binder.... she listed things like height, weight, "bestfriends", favorite activities, books etc several times throughout the year. Then as far as classwork goes... the had a really well done paper of each new thing they learned... so when practicing writting (her best hand writting for the 1st month of school) best math paper, etc. Listed the books that she read and when she completed them (as well as reading level,etc) Pictures of all field trips and special activities of my child plus class pictures, etc. There is a page that is this is how I wrote my name in Sep, Nov, Jan, Mar and May. It is really neat to see how simple things like that have changes. Special art projects and poems they learned (as well as their graded Bible verses since it is a chrisitan school). Each time they started something new like learning vowels etc. There would be a paper saved with the date on it. Since they don't give tons of grades you can go back through and pick your favorites from each subject at different times of the year.
I thought this idea was soooooo cool that I started one of my own for each kid this year. I have to go back through my sons k-4th grade papers that I have stacked up somewhere and make his but now I have the idea. So it was pretty easy to do this year. My 1st grader has more in her binder this year then her 5th grade brother but she also has better grades. Even not so great grades go in his binder though to show what he is learning and how he is doing. It is almost the end of the school year and my binders are almost full but it is so worth it. I can keep these easily for years!
Hope this helps :)

I have found that keeping maybe one sheet of schoolwork for each subject every month or so helps me see how my Kindergartner is progressing, and the artwork that he has abviously done himself, and a few of the cutesie things the teach helps with, I keep. Then I scrapbook them-the sheets in order and the crafts by season. It makes for a really nice little memior. Hope this helps :)

I send them to family. It helps keep my clutter down and it is such a nice surprise for out of state family. Grandmas especially love it. It helps them keep up with how is progressing, allows them to get conversations out of my son easier too.

They are right. It gets much less over the years. If you're really not sure whether to keep something, just keep it (and date it!), and you can decide later. Better to err on the side of caution.

I kept a memory bin for my kids - I gave up the idea of albums because there was too much stuff and just gave them each a large plastic bin for anything special to go into. That included anything special I wanted to keep (toys, blankets). I'm on a second bin for each, but now that they're teens, they rarely bring anything home I need to keep.

You have some really good ideas here and I am glad to hear you are already culling stuff in Kindergarten,....I particularly like the ones about taking pictures (which was suggested to me) and choosing some to frame, especially if it is art. I just cleared most of my son's papers 2 years ago and am presently sorting those that I have held on to. The reason I kept so much was 1) he is an only child and you don't want to not keep it 2) he had an IEP/504 and they sometimes request pieces of school work to see how he is doing. So I was holding on to composition work as well as art as well as science stuff, la, la, la! He is now 19 and his art has come a long way and he is considering majoring in some form of it in school. Hopefully the kind that makes money! He did do one or two pieces of art work in 1st grade that I WILL NOT throw away because it was wonderful. They were studying Van Gogh and the class painted sunflowers and poinsettas in a vase (two separate paintings). I was in one mom's house recently and she had hers framed. Her children are also in high school! So when I come across those, they WILL be framed.....I appreciate all of the ideas that you have received as it has helped me in this late game but SO glad you are getting this under control early. Good job! And thanks!

Our teachers, especially art teacher, suggested to take pictures of their projects instead of hanging on to them forever.

Hope this little tidbit helps!!

I'm curious to see what other moms say. My daughter's in 1st grade, and I do still have about one folder of work from K. Almost everything gets pitched, even her artwork, which I love, but there's just SO much of it!!!

I would say hold on to any really special projects (especially ones that don't take much space), maybe an early year example of each subject and an end of year example - assuming you haven't pitched the early stuff already. Or watch "hoarders, burried alive" and throw it all out :)

For K I kept everything! I was way too sentinmental and could not get rid of anything. The next year I went back to that tub and went through it and was more able to get rid of things. I kept all the 'firsts'. If it was his first time practicing his name, alphabet, writing phone number, adding/subtracting, colors, etc I kept all the good art work but the second time around was able to get rid of just the colored pages unless they were great. I got rid of over 1/2 the tub and then started saving for the next year and will do the same...go through it a year later and weed it out. It is hard in the moment but easier the year after. It is better to go through it immediately following that year than waiting until they are older and you can't let go of it. Once they are no longer young it will be harder and harder to let go. Each year gets easier with what you keep and what you get rid of. For example, you don't need to keep every letter of the alphabet that they practiced. Just keep a few letters that they color and practice writing. Good luck!

beware! i have 7 children . the oldest will be thiry in sept. the youngest is about to be ten. i have tons of stuff. i don't know what to do with it and don't want to get rid of it. it really seems stupid to keep it. a couple of pieces okey, gobs not so much. i guess i need to through out. i know you wanted an awnser but thats for giving me mine. good luck and god bless. don't forget you have 13 years of school.R.

I've started scanning stuff and I love it!!!! I put art work on my digit picture frame at work, I have an "artwork" album on my facebook page to share with granparents and aunts/uncles. I also have made note cards on my computer with artwork as the cover.

If I REALLY have it together, I'd like to make a little hard cover photobook with both pictures and schoolwork, but we will see.

Good luck...it is a problem for all of us!

You can scan the artwork and other papers and save them to a disk. This will be nice when he gets older and can look back on some of his work and see how his handwriting has changed.

When my first was in Kindergarten, I started off thinking I needed to keep every single piece of paper that came home. It didn't take long for me to realize that at that rate, we were going to be buried alive in two months. I made a decision then to only keep those papers or projects that really reflected who my child is (or was at that time). Art projects are usually keepers, but when it comes to other assignments I try to be very selective, usually only keeping things with original compositions (anything from a sentence to a paragraph to a whole story) because I know this will be unique to him. Almost no "fill-in-the-blank assignments make the cut. Every so often, my boys get into a rut with their themes (written or drawn), and, for instance, after the 2nd or 3rd jelly fish, bomber, race car, etc., I have to remind myself that ten years from now, all I'm going to think is "Why did I keep fifteen nearly identical things here?"

I saw a thing in a parenting mag that said to take a picture of all the art/work so you can save the memory of it without the paper clutter. I save the favorites for my son's baby book so he can see his own stuff later on, but I think when he hits school I will follow the advice I read. It seems smart and practical and in theory you can keep them all.