Throughout the years, your children are going to be bringing home a lot of school projects that they are particularly proud of, and you are going to want to save them. After a while, the fridge is going to be pretty covered with artwork, test papers, etc., and this really isn’t the best way to store all of these things anyway. Sure, put them up for a few days to show off the achievements, and then, find ways to store them so you and your children have these things to look fondly on many years down the road. Here are some storage ideas that are ideal for your child’s school work. Since children love arts and crafts, be sure to enlist their help to create the ideal storage for their school work and artistic masterpieces.
1. Bins
One of the easiest ways to start off is by getting a bin that will hold a lot of papers. If you have more than one child, get as many bins as you need, and label them with each child’s name. Depending on the size of the bins, you may need a separate one for each school year. Once you have your bins, move on to creating a filing system.
2. Binders
Another option instead of bins and a separate filing system is to use binders. You can even use some loose leaf at the front of the binder to create a table of contents that tells exactly what projects are stored in the binders. Use a different binder for each grade level.
3. Portfolios
If your child is a budding artist, protect their work with an artist portfolio. This allows you to store larger pieces of art than you could in a binder. Another option is to get those plastic, 8 ½ X 11 plastic page covers to protect artwork. You can find these at most stores that sell stationery supplies.
4. Make Personalized Gifts
Take your
child’s artwork and turn it into personalized gifts. All you have to do is scan the artwork or take a photo of it, and have it transformed into just about anything, from a calendar to a shirt to a coffee mug or just about anything else that can be personalized.
5. Digital Scrapbook
Each year, instead of storing a bunch of papers, scan them all and have them turned into a digital scrapbook. You can choose hard or soft cover books, and it is a nice way to present all of the things your child does in school. It also makes for a wonderful keepsake, a gift for the grandparents, etc. Basically, this is a yearbook that is more personal than the traditional yearbook.
6. Filing System
You are going to need to do a lot more than simply dump school work into the bins. You really do need to get everything organized. Set up a filing system for each bin, and the files can go from pre-K all the way up to Grade 12 and beyond. If they are ever looking for anything specific, it will be easy to find.
7. Make Collages
Put the school photos together in a
fun collage. You can make a huge collage with all of the school photos on it, or do a collage for each year that has their regular class photo, team photos, etc.
8. Turn Drawings into Statues
If you have any skills working in clay (and it really is pretty easy), you can turn your child’s drawings into three-dimensional statues that will be around a lot longer than a drawing on paper, which will disintegrate over time.
