How to Store & Organize Your Kids School Papers | Storage Ideas for Kids’ School Papers
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Here are five easy storage ideas for kids’ school papers that will get you organized and save space!
Let’s talk about storing and organizing kids school papers!
One thing I wasn’t fully prepared for when my kids started school?
The amount of papers that would be sent home! Especially if you have more than one kid in school!
By the third week or so, I was quickly becoming overwhelmed by the amount of papers coming home. If you’re not careful, your kids school papers can and will start to take over your entire house!
..Or at least create a cluttered stack somewhere on your kitchen counter.
So, what’s my biggest piece of advice for dealing with this?
Firstly, be prepared for all the school work that’s about to be sent home ahead of time! Have a plan and system in place.
In this post we’ll do just that as we go over ways to help you organize and store all of those precious keepsakes!
This post is all about storage ideas for kids’ school papers!
How to organize kids school paper
When it comes to organizing your kids school papers, the first step is to make sure we’re keeping up with everything coming home.
Create a routine for going through your kids school papers
If you don’t already have one in place, now it’s a great time to establish an after school routine for your kid. Be sure to add “clear out papers from backpack” as a task during their routine.
We have a FREE school routine checklist that you can edit, add tasks to and print out here. It’s a total game changer, I promise you!
Next, find a central spot that’s accessible to both you and your child where they know to leave all of their papers.
Personally, I highly suggest that you..
Create a drop off spot for your kids school papers!
Even if you don’t have a mudroom or attached garage, you still have options! We created a backpack station in our home and it’s perfect spot for the kids to drop off their backpacks, lunch bags, shoes and of course – school papers!
If spaces allows, another great option is to create a homework station so that your kids have a designated spot for storing and completing all things homework related.
We keep a desk organizer like this on top of our backpack station. Ours contains a bunch of homework supplies like crayons, colored pencils, erasers, pens, etc. It also has a section for holding paper in the back and that’s exactly where we tell them to put their school papers for us to go through later.
Don’t skip this next step..
Create a time in your routine to go through your kids school papers. This helps prevent a growing pile from becoming overwhelming and keeps you in the loop with things going on at school!
Next up, you’ll have to..
Decide which of your kids school papers to keep and what to throw away
I know, this is by far the hardest part of this entire process!
In your momma heart, you probably want to keep everything your little one has created or worked on. Most of us feel the same!
If you have a kindergartener, I highly suggest making a school work memory book!
1. School Memory Book Keepsake – Storage Ideas For Kids’ School Papers
In kindergarten, more than any other year, they send home just about everything. Plus, since it’s their first year of school, it just makes the task of throwing things away that much more heart wrenching.
This specific school paper storage ideas allows you to keep almost everything they bring home!
I saved so many papers during her first year of school and I ended up being super thankful that I did because this school work memory book turned out better than I could have ever expected.
I have an entire post HERE about how I create our school year memory scrapbooks!
A school memory book like this is the ultimate keepsake! You get to creatively collaborate with your little one on the layout of each page and use tons of their school work to create fun collages together.
Personally, I think this is a great idea for all grades but if you only do it once, I definitely think Kindergarten is the year to do it!
{Related Post: How to Make The Sweetest School Work Memory Book}
As for other grades, I suggest that you..
Let your kids decide themselves what to keep and what to throw away!
Over the years I’ve found that we’re often the ones more attached to pieces of their work than they are.
Luckily, this totally works in our favor!
Explain to your kids that they’ll be responsible for deciding what to keep and what to throw away. Remind them that you simply cannot keep everything so they’ll need to be pretty selective.
Great examples of what to keep include projects, artwork they spent a significant amount of time working on, test scores they’re extra proud of and writing pieces.
Examples of school papers they can throw away include mini random doodles, scratch paper (yes, we’ve been sent home paper used for scratch) and repeat papers like weekly completed homework pages.
Where to temporarily store kids school papers
During the year, you’ll want a way to quickly store and organize papers until you have time towards the end of the year to really sort through everything.
Depending on what system you decide to use to ultimately keep your kids school papers and memorabilia over the years, it won’t always be immediately accessible.
For example, if you decide to go with something like a storage bin, chances are it will be stored away in a closet or the garage.
You’re going to want to have a more accessible storage idea in place for the current school year until you have time later to permanently store everything from the entire year.
This is exactly what we use in our home and I can’t rave about it enough!
This file organizer is low profile but still has growing space for tons of papers. Seriously, you could save every single paper that gets sent home this school year in this thing and you’d probably still have space!
Since we never have to worry about running out of room with this, it allows us to keep things we’re currently undecided on if we want to ultimately keep or not. We can simply store it for now, and revisit it later.
Additionally, you can also..
2. Display some of your kids school papers that get sent home.
Instead of immediately stashing them away, some papers that get sent home deserve to be admired by the entire household for a while!
The fridge is a great place to display school work, impressive scores and art projects.
Another great way to display kids school work is to literally frame it!
Sounds a bit extra? Maybe, but these frames are pretty dang cool!
Frame worthy papers and art projects give your little ones a chance to be extra proud of their work and show off!
I love, love, love this idea especially for holiday themed artwork. This is the perfect way to display your kids art while also doubling it as actual home decor!
With additional storage in the back of the frame, you can easily swap through your favorite pieces until you’re ready to store them away for good.
Best of both worlds!
Where to put important school papers:
Lastly, we have important school papers like school announcements, report cards, permission slips and project reminders!
Things that need to be signed should be signed and returned to the backpack immediately.
** This is another reason why I appreciate having our backpack station so much. I can use the pens in the desk organizer to sign things or fill out forms and then easily return them to the backpack all in the same spot!
Announcements and reminders should be displayed in a central place in the home where everyone can see them.
We use the bulletin board above our backpack station for papers like this! Another great spot for them would be on the fridge, in your family command center or even just taped up on the wall.
Minimalist ways to store kids school papers
Whether you’re just not a huge fan of the idea of keep track of years of school papers or simply don’t have the space, there are other more minimalist ways to store your kids school papers!
An increasingly popular way to keep all of your kiddos school memories is to..
3. Create a digital school memory book
Instead of worrying about saving, organizing and storing papers, you can snap a photo of them or scan them and then toss the paper without losing the memory.
Then, you can organize all the photos into digital files to save on your computer or a memory card. You can even take them and create a photo book like this..
With websites like Shutterfly, it’s super easy to create an adorable memory book just like this!
At the end of the year you can go online and create a photo book in literally minutes and have it delivered straight to your home.
If you still want to keep the physical, original papers, here’s another idea:
Instead of creating an entire school work scrapbook, try making a..
4. School Memory Binder – Storage ideas for kids’ school papers
Similar to the previous scrapbook idea, this allows you to keep original papers but doesn’t require you to be creative at all.
It really is as simple as it sounds, you simply hole punch and save special papers from the school year in a binder.
If you’re super selective, you can even combine several years into one binder!
Many people separate the school years by using first/last day of school interview printables like this one.
My sons pre-k teacher made a school memory binder for all of her students and sent it home on the last day of school. It was such a great surprise and definitely a wonderful idea!
How to store larger school memorabilia
Lastly, the old school way of storing school papers and projects..
5. Use a large storage bin
It’s tried and true, the way our parents, parents kept their school memories – a storage bin! More specifically, a hanging folder storage bin.
This is the least “space-saving” option but it does allow for a lot of larger memorabilia.
Some people use one bin per kid and keep all 12 years of school memories in it. This is most often organized by using hanging file folders for each year.
Alternatively, you can use one of the other storage ideas in combination with a storage bin solely for larger keepsakes.
Chances are, there will only be a select few larger projects that you’ll want to save per kid so you could potentially use one bin for all kids (if using other ideas for the rest of the school papers).
This post was all about storage ideas for kids’ school papers!
If your child is already in school, you know what a burden it is to constantly be sorting, organizing and storing papers. But, you also know how important it is!
You are helping preserve years of memories that you child will be so glad you saved for them in the future.
I know storing and organizing your kids’ school papers can be a bit of a task but now you know all the ways to store and organize your kids school papers and you’re fully prepared!
You’ve totally got this!
