School Work Keepsake Book
It’s an age-old question: what do I do with all that crap (sorry – I mean beautiful art work) my kids bring home from school??? I have a friend (you know who you are…) who enthusiastically admires her children’s crafts, gives them the perfect amount of praise, and then subtly throws it all right into the trash! She has zero guilt about doing this – it’s amazing!!! I unfortunately am not blessed with that guiltlessness. So I’ve come up with a little process that does allow me to throw their work away… guilt free… eventually…
Here’s what I do:
As soon as they bring their work home from school I go through it. I do this pretty much every day, and I make 3 piles:
Art work and papers that are worth saving
Homework and papers that need to be reviewed – like a math test that didn’t go so well or a spelling test with a few too many missed words
The true crap that just honestly isn’t worth saving, which I throw away the second they’re not looking
This process somehow does allow me (without guilt) to toss about half their papers away – probably because I am saving a little bit of their work on a consistent basis. I put the first pile of items up on the fridge or on our mud room bulletin board. I review any items from the 2nd pile with that child and then throw it away.
Then, about once a month I clean off the bulletin board, organize the work by kid and roughly in chronological order, and then photograph the work with my phone. I store the pictures in folders on my phone titled: Billy PreK – 2019-2020 (for example).
Then all that work goes in a paper bag in the bottom of a closet. I also photograph things from the year like: class pictures, team photos, valentine’s, science projects, and any other thing that felt memorable from the year.
At the end of the school year I hop onto my Chatbooks App and upload all the photos from that folder on my phone and create a Hardcover 8×8 book with all their work. Chatbooks requires very little editing – everything is loaded in order, with a single item per page. Now Chatbooks is not the format for someone who wants to edit layouts and add captions to every item. If this is you, Shutterfly might be a better option. But honestly… how much description does their Halloween ghost drawing really need?? My last year book was 103 pages, and cost $56 – you could pick a different book format and adjust the page count to get to a different price.
Now, I know you’re wondering about the bag of all the work in the bottom of the closet… I definitely pull out a few things and add them to their ‘treasure boxes’ (which are stored in the top of their closets). Things like books they’ve written, the team photos, really special art work – but never more than 5 or so things. Then, once the book arrives in the mail and I feel confident it doesn’t have any major issues, I tell my husband to throw what’s left in the bag away (but only after I’ve left the house and can’t watch!!!) Ha! You think I’m kidding….
But the real reward is finding my 1st grader sitting on the living room couch flipping through his book from last year. The process took just a little bit of effort, gave attention and acknowledgment to his hard work, and left us with a format that he can ACTUALLY enjoy. Because let’s be honest, if every single one of those items went into a box, he would never look at it. And it wouldn’t do much for my relationship with his wife, when 30 years from now I drop off all those boxes on his doorstep!
Hopefully this inspires you to create keepsake books of your children’s work!
