School Papers - Simple Steps to Decrease the Paper Clutter

Papers from school can be harder to deal with than if someone came in and dumped a garage truck full of trash in your driveway. Why? Because they are personal! Your children did them, worked on them and created them. That is why so many mom's have trouble getting rid of them. They just love to see what their child has accomplished.
So can you keep everything all your kids do from the time the start school until they finish? Sure...if you want to live in a trash zone or store them in a storage unit so they can rot in there.
No..of course you can't, and better yet, there is no reason you should.

Should you keep a few special papers each year so that you can enjoy them and they can see them when they grow up? Certainly! But only a few.

Here is a guideline to help you decide what papers to keep and what to get rid of.

ONE PAPER PER MONTH PER CHILD.

How is that for simple? It gives you a limit, a guideline and a goal. Can you keep less than that....YES!!

But what if they have 1 really good picture that won a school coloring contest and then an A+ on their first big report, but they are in the same month? Ok...no problem, go back through the other months and decide on which one is not as important to keep as these.
So really it is 12 papers a year. Yes...you can use the summer months as a cushion.

Don't keep all the worksheets that they do. They are worksheets..just to learn.
Look for the stories they wrote by themselves.
Look for the pictures they did not trace, but drew themselves.
Look for the reports they worked months on and were so proud of.

So what do you do with all the other pictures they drew, science fair projects with huge poster boards?

Take a picture!! Just like the above pictures. My triplets were thrilled to pose with their projects and loved that I liked them enough to take pictures of them. They don't care if they don't have that big poster shoved back in some cubby space in the basement anymore. They still have the memories..and that is all we need too.
You can scan them into your computer if small enough and you have the memory space on your computer.

You can create a photo book from some of these online places like Snapfish. Peter Walsh shared this idea on one of his Oprah shows. He said take pictures of their art work (you can put more than one of their pictures in the photo) and then at the end of each school year create one of these photobooks with their art work. There is room to write in the book accomplishments, teacher's names, accomplishments for the year. This would be much nicer for them to have when they are older than a box full of papers.

You can have a bulletin board that you keep a special paper of the day or of the week on to showcase it if its a little special and they worked hard on it that week. This will make them feel proud. Then when you take it down, if its not that most special paper of the month...throw it away. (They do not need to see you physically throw it away, nor do you have to tell them - they will just be thrilled their new picture is up now.)

If you keep everything....then nothing will seem special!!

Keeping big boxes of papers to give your children is a burden not a gift. They have to deal with getting rid of all the papers you felt to guilty getting rid of.
Being handed one box of things that goes from k-12 is not so bad, and photo books would be even better.


Remember, it is not like you are saying your child isn't special or you don't like the work they do by throwing it away. But keeping everything is not feasible if you want to have a home that is comfortable and not cluttered.

Should Kids Help in the House? YES!!

I am reposting this because we have been discussing it this week. There be many of you who have not seen it before. (Happy Friday)










I am very opinionated on this subject. I strongly believe that children need to be given responsibilities starting very young. You can start out with just holding the basket so they can put their baby toys in them when they are around a year old!
Job boards with pictures work great for toddlers. A toothbrush for brushing their teeth.
The younger you start the kids in learning they have responsibilities around the house, the more responsible children they will become.
Kids like to feel important, to feel needed, to feel like they contribute to the family.
I don't feel that kids have to be paid to do chores. Do we get paid to clean the house? It is part of being a family. Of course allowances can be fine and used as a family wishes, I am just saying that I don't believe a child should think that he HAS to be paid to do any work in the house. It is all a matter of how it is presented.
Our kids do get an allowance. It is very small. Just enough to help them learn how to save some money and how it can go into the bank.
I have often had "extra" jobs that can be "paying" jobs in the summer if the kids want to make some money. It might be washing windows or something that I normally wouldn't have them do. (They think these is great fun actually.) But these are on top of their normal jobs.
Our kids have 2 regular jobs to do for the week. For the 8 year olds it is setting the table, clearing the table, helping in the kitchen, vacuuming or helping carry the laundry. That is on top of the routine making their beds and cleaning their rooms daily. They also put their clean clothes from their cubbys away when needed.

I think that we need to be raising our children to prepare them to be on their own. I have seen many, many children who have never had to do anything to help in their homes and I feel a disservice is being done to those kids.
I have 3 boys who have left the home and are living on their own now and they all know how to do laundry, keep things clean and what responsibilities need to be done. (I can't say they always do it..but they have been given the proper tools and instruction and they know how.)

Kids Job Board - Make your own!

I have posted before how important I think that it is that kids help with chores.
It is not to make it easier for the mom...actually there are many times that it would be a lot easier if we just did it ourselves.
Our job as parents is to prepare our children for life on their own. Learning when they are small that they are part of a family and all the family pitches in to help get things accomplished is very important. It teaches them responsibility, accountability and life lessons.
I may be tough, but I don't think kids have to be rewarded every time they help do what is expected of them. I do believe in allowances, but mainly so they have some experience in dealing with money. They need to learn to save and how to use it wisely.

This is the job board I use. It is simple, easy to change and not expensive.
As I said on my MomTV web cast last night, I would post the instructions on how to make one yourself. (You can go to replays on that link - just look on right side mid page.)

Decide what size magnetic board you need. This will depend on how many children you have.
Here is a picture of a smaller one that can be used for just one or two children.


Get some magnetized business stickers. You can find these in a business store. They are meant to use for business cards, so you can turn them into magnets.



Peel back the sticker


Take an old business card and turn it so the blank side is showing. You can also cut
paper to fit if you don't have business cards to use.
Just place them on carefully.


Decide on what jobs you want your kids to have.
They need to be age appropriate. If your child can not read yet, then use pictures along with the words. They will understand what it means.
I use little stars in the right hand corner to signify jobs that the younger children can do.

(hopefully your toothpaste doesn't look like a worm sitting on a toothbrush like mine!! LOL)

Then just put your children's names across the top. Place the proper job under their names.
My kids know that if they touch the job board or move things around without permission...they will be given some extra jobs! (so they don't touch it.)
We change jobs weekly.
Just leave the kids names in the same place and rotate the jobs below.
Very simple!