What to Do with All This Art from Preschooler?

It gets a lot less by middle school, so you don't have to multiply it by 15 years.

Just buy a bin, name and date the art, and put only the most precious works in an album. The rest, toss in the bin. That way, when you are old with nothing to do, you will want to go through it all.

Kinder through 6th, it's not really that many years. Throw away the ones that take absolutely no effort.

This made me laugh. If I kept everything I could fill a room a large room. Sorry but you keep a couple a year toss the rest.

Hi J.,

My DD is in preschool too and we have a ton of artwork and science projects that they did in class. I got a couple of clear plastic tubs that I labeled and got a few hanging folders that fit into the tubs. All the artwork is in the folders and I have them labeled by month/year. I don't want to throw anything out because she may want to look at it when she's older. The tubs fit in the bottom of my closet so they are out of the way/

I take pictures of the art they are really proud of and we have a special folder on the desktop where we archive the images. At the end of the year we order an annual 'art book' off an online photo developer and keep them with the picture albums (costs about 20.00 bucks). Now I have the bliss of 0 guilt when I toss those crayon scribbles in the trash ;)

take photos of it.
Then load it onto your computer.
Or on disk.
Keep special ones.
Toss the others.
It will really accumulate.
Or put them in plastic bins per year/grade.
but that accumulates too.

I use an accordian style art portfolio, about 24" x 36". It keeps the papers flat and vertical so you can slip it behind a bookcase or some other skinny spot in your house.

my mother in law had 3 big totes in her garage. one for each kid. Once art was rotated off the display wall,she put a date on the back and it went into the kids tote along with report cards, mothers day cards, certificates from school, every little scrap. Every now and then she could open and dig through them. On each kids 21st birthday she made them a scrapbook of thier life up to that point. She cut little corners off the art, or used pieces of it as the scrapbook page that she glued pics onto. She took digital pics of some of her favorites that didn't fit and put all those certificates, and report cards, and mothers day cards. It's a beautiful thing to see. She still has the totes and the grandkids absolutely love when they get to dig through them.

My mom had a child's filing cabinet. It was tall with red cardboard drawers and each drawer was assigned a grade, K-12. We got to put all of our things in those cabinets ourselves and they were always kept in our own closets. It was nice because we had a designated place for them and it was organized and neat. Of course, when I got older it was more report cards and big assignments I wanted to keep, but it was still nice having it there!

take a picture of your child holding it or tape a few on the bedroom door and take a pic of child in front of the drawings and then scrapbook it or put it in a photo album.

or you can scan it and use it as a screensaver on computer. or put it on flash drive.

I keep them in a pile on my counter. When it falls over I tell my daughter to pick 2 to keep and recycle the rest. The 2 that are kept begin the new pile :o) Once in a while she's put one up on the fridge; it acts as a sail everythime someone walk by - quite pretty actually.

I might have to try the picture-taking idea though, once kindergarten starts and once her "art" isn't so....abstract. hahaha

I'd save a couple of favorites, date them, and chuck out the rest.

We have a 12-foot ling "clothes line" that we got from IKEA in our kitchen. It's actually made out of wire so it doesn't sag and secures to the wall; we have it a few inches below the ceiling. We use clothes pins to hang up the latest and greatest from the younger kids. It's a nice way to display everything without having tape all over the walls. When it gets too full, we put things in storage bins. When I'm feeling very organized, I'll take a few and mail them to my aunts and our grandmothers - they love having a little something colorful to put on the fridge!

I keep everything until the end of the year. Once school is done we go through and they get to pick like five or so things they really like. The rest I toss, honestly. It sounds horrible. I just hated when I got married I was sent with every piece of paper i brought home until I hit about seventh grade. That made for a mess to go through when we moved. This was the only thing I could think of to save them from having to go through the same thing down the road. Now they have a few pieces they really love and we get to enjoy them up on the walls and on the backs of our shared living space doors!

I KNOW my son doesn't do 90% of the actual work because I'm at school with him. I DO keep the stuff he actually makes, the other stuff gets tossed.

I have a scrapbook and put things in there. I don't mount any of them, just put them in the sheets.

Someday I'll take pictures and make a photobook like they did on Oprah. I already knew that tip but she made it popular. (I loved the free one they had from the offer for all the viewers!)

Buy 3 more refrigerators and LOTS of magnets. ok ok, so, really, I took a lot of the crafty things, dated them and use them as Christmas ornaments every year. Its a blast to get out that silly cotton ball lamb he made in 1st grade, and the popsickle stick wrapped with yarn she brought home one time and hang them on the tree. I saved some really special things, like when my daughter at 4 years old, asked me how to spell a bunch of words and when done she had written a poem to me. Its framed and hangs in my room. I have the plates they both made in preschool, and those little pinch pots made from red dirt clay. We keep pennys in them on the desk. Some pictures that werent special enough to save, we mailed to Grama and since we rarely saw her, we never had to know if they were displayed or tossed. I have a box in the closet, and a drawer in my dresser full of baby books and "stuff" and someday I will hand them over to my kids and let them savor the joy of saving.

With 1 child, I could keep everything in a large 3-ring binder and page protectors. THEN, my parents dropped off boxes that they had kept for me, full of art from K-3. The paper had been eaten by various bugs and feces from those bugs deposited in that box. Anything that was previous food, like macaroni art was GONE and yep, more feces. I was so grossed out that I had to go through feces and bug carcases, that I threw everything out....and had very few memories.

NOW, I scan everything and put them as full pages (or partial pages) in a scrapbook on www.mixbook.com and when the year is up, I have it printed and sent to me, so I have a hard copy AND it's online, so if the house burns down, flood, earthquake, etc, I can always order another one. (I also do this will ALL birthday cards, Valentine cards, etc.)

I can't imagine keeing everything with 3 kids and another on the way...adn they love it since they get to see their art each and every time they pull their "big books" out to look at. Nothing ever was looked at when it was in a plastic bin of keepsakes.

i throw it away. you can't save everything.

lakeshorelearning.com has a keepsake portfolio that you can order (even personalized with your child's name if you like) and keep all their school work in. It has a hard cover, but inside it is accordian style so you can separate the work by school year.

Good luck!
Tammy

I save only about 25% of the art my 4 yo brings home. Mostly scribbles and hundreds of pieces of paper where he has practiced writing his name go in the recycle bin. I keep the more meaningful pieces- paintings, drawings of family and the pets, the more creative pieces like noodle art or cards.

I toss what I have already displayed for a few weeks,keep what I like & want to look back on I store them in a container then I glue them to a scrapbook spiral bound that just has the cardstock pages I put their names on the front with scrapbook letters what it is "name"preschool then decorate the pages with a note or just glue the art work.

One tip-if I had it to do over again I would have labeled their stuff with a sticky so I would remember how/when I received it and if there was a cute story behind it. I have so much now that I thought I would never forget but sadly I do. But at the same time I cannot bear to toss it. So it all goes in bins.

Take a look at all the stuff he brings home now and multiply it by 15 years - then realize that most will have to get thrown out. They will remember making NONE of it. My kids are in high school and middle school and they laugh at the stuff they made - they can only recall making a few special things in elementary school but nothing before that time.

Pick out one or two special things each month - we have the really special stuff hung on the walls of the stairs that go to our finished basement. when I was a kid my mom hung stuff on the mudroom walls - layers and layers of stuff. When we bought the house and had to tear down the mudroom we had a lot of chuckles at how far back some of that artwork went!!!

Good luck - as they get older and their work improves it gets harder to decide what to keep. We have 2 bins in the basement of old daycare notes, preschool & gradeschool work and report cards. it was 4 bins but we culled it out last year. With 10 yrs perspective I was able to know what to throw out more easily!

i throw it away. I keep anything fantastic on the wall, after a while it gets beat up, and it get trashed.

I have a chest for each of my boys with all the treasures I have saved over the years from first blankies to art.