Preschool Projects - How to Handle the Clutter

I display one new one at a time, and sometimes a few special ones too. When a new ones is made, the other one goes in the recycle one or in a save bin. Save the ones that really stand out... there will be hundreds of the others! Take pics of some of them and make a little flip book.

One cute idea is to do a clothesline wall... a string with the pins against the wall and hang some projects from it.

one idea is shown here like that on my blog:
http://littlelovables.blogspot.com/2010/04/soft-yellow-ac...

and I especially love this clipboard wall, another clothesline pic is shown too:
http://littlelovables.blogspot.com/2009/09/simple-and-tru...

Hi E.,

I found a great little product this summer - it's called the VuPoint Magic Wand Portable Scanner. It is a handheld scanner wand, which allows for you to scan items larger than a standard 8 1/2" x 11" sheet of paper - perfect for school projects! I plan to keep a few items per season to display & send to grandparents/aunts & uncles, and will save those in a portfolio.

The great part of the scanner is that you can also use it to scan & save things like receipts, bank statements, etc., without having to dedicate physical space for them. Scan them, and shred them! The scanner runs about $100, and can be found at Walmart, Target, Amazon.com among other places.

Hope this helps!

Both of my sons are in full time school this year so I decided to tackle to clutter-I saved a ton of their school projects-but in a totally unorganized way! It was a BIG pain going through them. So if I can offer any advice gained from personal experience:

Use a long and thin steralite bin for each year (you can later combine if needed). LABEL each project with a date and with anything else pertinent about it (like "johnny and I worked on this project together and had a blast picking leaves out in the yard" or "this was his first project of the second grade) This will make it much more meaningful when you go back to look at it. I had NO idea what many of the things I saved were or which year they were from.

For the holiday artwork-I love to hang up all of their old holiday artwork-so much nicer than all the store bought stuff. If you want to do this (I wish I would have done it like this!) I would suggest getting some cheap artist portfolios at Michaels that will keep it nice and flat. Also-laminating it will keep it in much better condition.

You are definitely going to oversave stuff and that is totally OK! One of the saddest things I have ever heard was when my neighbor came over and saw all of my boy's artwork on the walls. She said "my Mom doesn't like MY drawings." When I asked her what she meant she said that her mother always threw her stuff away. And it is true-this neighbor is very organized and has the philosophy that you only save a couple of things per year and the rest is throw away/junk. Well mom, guess what....to your child it is NOT junk!

I bought an under-the-bed bin and put the stuff in there. WARNING: for nursery & pre-school (PT & 1/2 days) everything fit. Once Kindergarten hit,, and First grade--there is SOOOOOO many sheets/worksheets everyday that it would probably take several bins to hold O. year. I made the mistake of keeping everything from first grade and go through, sort and pitch at the end of the year and it was a nightmare--go through it as you go. Our school has a paper retriever recycling bin where they earn money for recycling the paper used at school--which is a good thing!

When my, now first grader, started preschool I decided that all of the projects were cluttering up the house so I decided to take pictures of them and then at the end of the school year I used shutterfly and made a hard covered photo album, titled preschool. I did the same for Kindergarten and plan to until he graduates. It was still really hard to throw the original project away so I kept a few from each year.

Good Luck

So here is an idea I like, although I haven't done it yet myself. Keep one or two items tha tare special every month for a scrapbook. However, take digital photos of wha the makes and work he does. then you can save it and also create digital scrapbooks. It gets harder when they get older and remember what they make and get mad if you toss it. I still don't hav ea solution for that :)

My son has two cork boards in his bedroom. When he would bring things home, I had HIM decide if he wanted to keep it. If he did, he had to make room on his cork board for it. Otherwise I tossed it. I get SO much stuff, I can't be attached to all of it.

That said, maybe you can collect the work for the month. Then arrange it all on the floor and take a picture. Print the picture and choose one item to keep. Then put both the picture and the item in a scrapbook or photo album with the date.

Good luck.
T.

I kept everything my son brought home from school. I had boxes of stuff. Someone suggested taking pictures once a week of the art work and then only keeping a few things. We have started doing that. Eventually I will put them all on a disk for him and he can do what he wants to with them.

I too wanted a bin, but was thinking "where am I going to put ANOTHER bin?". So I bought one that fits under my son's bed. There's enough room under there for three bins (but I don't plan on using that many). I have two boys so I can store their bins under their beds and it doesn't take up any extra space in the basement or other storage areas. I like the idea of going through the bin each year and weeding out the stuff we really don't want to keep. Good luck.

Any cute seasonal or holiday preschool projects I put in my basement on some shelves with other decorations. So when it's time to decorate for that time of year, I put those projects and pictures on display. As my kids advance through school I will have to slowly weed out some of the things. I had a lot of non seasonal things on my refrigerator that she made and when I decided to declutter the fridge, she asked me to put a lot of it up on a wall in her room. Good luck!

i took pics of all her projects and made a photo book at the end of the school year...it came out great and she loved it. i saved some thngs and kept things hung up through the school year. ENJOY!

I hung quite a few pieces on my cupboard and rotated them. In the end I took pictures of almost all of the work, but only saved a select few. I figure its easier to save pictures then to save all the pieces of work.

One of the girls in my moms group scans the papers and projects everyday when her little one gets home so she has it and doesn't worry so much about having to get rid of it. As sweet as the papers are it's really impossible to keep everything and the grandparents aren't going to want piles of papers to keep either. You will be able to spot the special things to keep.

One useful way to keep everything, I think, is to take digital photos of them (with your child holding their creation is awesome because it shows how old they were when they made it too :) then I store them all on a memory stick or external hard drive ..something like that holds tons of photos. You can print the best ones and store them in a photo album for each child you have too (which I haven't done but would like to get around to doing so lol)
If you burn them to CD it works too but CDs deteriorate over time so I wouldn't suggest them for preserving memories.
I do keep their most important "special" works of art ...especially from their first years of school, but only some. I have four kids (all different ages too) so I would need a dump truck to store everything they ever made haha..I hate to throw any of it out but it doesn't hurt as much when you keep the work they put the most effort in and take photos of the rest.
This way you can also share them with everyone easily too.

Ok, so I start this by telling you I am a minimalist, we homeschool, I own a local business, scrapbook and photograph everything and currently pregnant with #4. Oh, and I hate clutter more than anything in the world and my time is limited.

My mom recently gave me a box of my things from elementary school and everything was destroyed. Macaroni necklaces, etc were bug food and now bug feces. Not a fun thing to go through..... Candles were melted. It was awful.

I take pictures of ALL of my kid's projects and then throw them out after a month. Anything made with food gets photographed and tossed right away to keep the bugs out. My kids have never even asked for any of their projects.

My son is in his 4th year of soccer and is Jr. Black Belt, so we have almost 20 trophies. He's very much attached to those, we I've kept all of them, but I do have pictures of his standing with each one as he earned them, in case he ever gets to the point of getting rid of them.

I scrapbook online and at the end of the year, I have a book printed and sent to me. Each of their lives fit in a 12x12 book that is 1/2 inch thick - no projects!

They each have one rubbermaid bin that contains their first birthday's cards, baby blankets made for them, you know a few things they might want later. Each birthday after that, I scan each card and "put" it in their scrapbooks. I also scan homework samples and toss the rest - and I put one page of samples in each scrapbook, but I keep more samples in my homeschool file on the computer for records later.

LOVE all the ideas you got so far! Especially taking pictures of them (I want to start this!). We keep 1-2 things each week and display them for about a week on our fridge and ones that are especially cute go on her closet door in her bedroom.

I suggest using them for birthday cards (just fold up and have your child sign them) or if you have a small enough present, wrapping paper! You can use them for thank you cards or Christmas cards too for your child's daycare providers or teachers at school.