Kids’ Art & School Work Organization

I’ve been wanting to share how I organize and store my kiddo’s school work and artwork and I finally got last year’s work sorted and filed this week and I thought it was a good time to share how I store these keepsakes. I’ve gotten asked a lot about how I organize my kids’ school work and I am in no way an expert artwork/schoolwork keep-saker, however, I have got an easy system that works for me. As a mom of 3 school age kiddos, I have been bombarded by all the artwork and school work that comes home on a daily basis. Usually my counters are covered in the days’ unloading of backpacks, and then it gets shoved into a kitchen desk slot or in a wall hanging file sorter, waiting to get sorted. Last year I had a cardboard bankers box in the garage and just threw the stuff I wanted to keep in there and called it a day. I figured I’d get around to sorting and filing at some point after our move. And that day finally happened this week!

I’m a pretty nostalgic person and I have loved going through my box of my childhood keepsakes that my parents saved, especially now that I have kids. But let’s get real…a lot of it isn’t totally worth saving and with 4 kids, I need an easy and somewhat compact system or else my whole basement storage room will be filled with all of our “keepsakes”!

I set up this whole system when my oldest had just started preschool. I purchased all the supplies for both my boys even though my youngest was less than a year old. After my daughter was born, I set up her file box, too, so it was all ready to go once she started school. I’ll need to add one more file box! Good thing The Container Store just opened in Omaha! It was like they knew I was moving to Nebraska :) I haven’t been yet, and I’m saving up my organizing project list so I can go prepared!

I purchased the Clear Stackable File Tote Box, and a few sets of the blue and hot pink hanging files from The Container Store all at once. You’ll need one for every grade of school, plus each year of preschool and maybe an extra set for overflow.

I have noticed now that my oldest is in 3rd grade, there’s less work that comes home that I want to save. Usually at Open House or at the end of the year, there is a stack of art and writing that comes home, but the older my oldest gets, the less work that comes home daily. So you’ll have lots of cute art projects in the early years and you may need some extra files for those keepsakes.

I found this printable years ago on i heart organizing. You can find the free printable HERE. 

I printed out the printable on cardstock and just adhered them to the front of the file folders with acid free, archival photo mounting squares.

Here’s the box I was just throwing art work and school work in last year. It worked fine as a temporary solution to store the work until I was ready to go through it all and file it away. If you have room for something like this in a closet or an office, that would be a good place to store school work until maybe a school break or a semester break and then file it all away. You could even make this a cute box or basket if it’s out in the open.

I tried to get the larger stackable file tote for my daughter because it was feeling like the one I had for the boys was too small, but it got bent in the move and now it’s not closing right. Her file box was all a mess, so I just sorted through her work to get it nice and organized and back into those hanging file folders. I’m going to get her another one of the smaller ones. I guess if there’s too much to fit in here over the years, I’ll just add another one and separate one for Elementary School and then one for Jr. High/High School.

This whole sorting process of all of last year’s work for 3 kids took maybe 45 minutes but that was because I was looking at it all and reflecting on each little piece :) It could have probably taken 30 minutes, so it’s an easy system. And easy means doable!

I found that in preschool and kindergarten, there was a lot of oversized artwork and folders of work that didn’t fit into the original file box. And I didn’t want these large items just floating around, even just stacked on top of these file totes, because I knew they’d get damaged or lost or just scattered around the house. One of my biggest organizing pet peeves is having similar items, especially things that are very meaningful, all over the house. I’ve learned living for years in Southern California that if there is a wildfire fire and you are needing to be evacuated, you want the things most worth saving all together and easily accessible. {I was so good at this before kids…now it’s one of my main goals for the year, remember?!?}

So a year or so into this whole organizing system, I found these great under the bed storage totes for the oversized items.  {Ok, on a side note, is it odd that I’m getting seriously giddy looking through The Container Store website??? Give me The Container Store or an office supply store and I could seriously spend HOURS browsing and shopping and be so extremely happy! Tell me I’m not the only one out there that feels this way!}  I didn’t want these totes to be huge so I could just hoard store every last scrap of paper that my kids drew on. They needed to hold enough, but not too much. In our last house they went under the bed. I haven’t decided yet where these totes will ultimately live: Either the kids’ closets or the basement storage room, but they’ll get stored together. If it’s an easy organizing system, it will get used. If it’s overly complicated and everything is stored all over, things won’t ultimately get put away and saved.

I just printed out the labels on my label maker and assembled all the folders through high school.

Their school picture goes right on the front along with some info about their school year. I usually just buy the “most popular” photo package and get a 8×10, a couple of 5x7s and wallets.

My kids love going through their boxes to see their work. I like to keep things that reflect who they were at that age: Artwork of things they loved, their first attempts at writing their name, some coloring samples, cute writing samples and anything that has their hand print or foot print I’m keeping! I’ve kept items from preschool Mother’s Day Teas and any Father’s Day artwork, too.

I don’t keep cards or invitations or that kind of thing in these totes, although I totally could. I have put those in a different box and honestly that whole system could definitely use an overhaul and maybe they’ll end up in here so again, it’s all in one place. When I start working on my photo organization, I will be putting all of their school photos and sports photos in one of these same stackable file totes. I want those pictures to be easily accessible and all together, so when I make my trip to The Container Store, I’ll be sure to write a post sharing how I am organizing school and sports photos.

I just stuck a chalkboard label on the front with their initial so we knew whose was whose. This has been a fairly easy system for keeping all those sweet little pieces of work. Looking through them this week, it made me realize again, how they days sure are long, but the years, they are just so short!

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