Best Ways to Organize School Papers and Clear Clutter Fast
School is in full swing and as a parent you may be feeling overwhelmed with the amount of items your child/children are bringing home from school. Here is some advice I provided for a local magazine on how to implement smart systems to help keep items organized when they come home from school:
What are some systems you recommend when it comes to organizing items your child/children bring home from school?
Art: Create a designated display area such as a bulletin board, fridge clips, or a photo ledge for artwork your child put effort into (recycle quick coloring sheets right away). Set limits on how much and how long artwork is displayed so it continues to rotate. Store keepsake pieces in a memory box or photograph them for a photo book and recycle the originals.
Graded Papers: Talk through the paper while it's still fresh in your child's mind. Unless it was a major test or highlights an area needing improvement, feel free to discard it. If it's useful for future test preparation, keep it in a folder labeled "Test Practice" near the homework area and clear it out at the end of the school year.
School Forms: Keep a designated folder for papers that need to be returned to school. Handle time-sensitive items immediately. If it takes less than five minutes, do it now rather than setting it aside. Most school forms require little more than a signature.
The amount of papers children bring home can often be overwhelming. What advice do you have for parents navigating what to keep, what to toss, etc.?
Kids bring home a tremendous amount of paper from school, but not all papers carry the same value. Some are practice worksheets and coloring pages, while others showcase growth, creativity, and personality. Curate a collection that truly reflects the school year by sorting papers into three categories:
Quick Toss: Coloring sheets, worksheets, and practice pages that make up the bulk of daily papers. Acknowledge them, celebrate the effort, and recycle them.
Display/Celebrate for a Few Days: Tests they studied hard for or artwork they invested significant time in. Display these temporarily before deciding whether to recycle or store them. Limiting display space helps teach the one in/one out rule.
Long Term Keepsake: Stories your child writes, artwork showing growth and skill development, teacher praise, classroom photos, awards, and other meaningful milestones. A curated collection of 10 meaningful items each year will be far more enjoyable to revisit than a box full of worksheets.
What's a good method for keeping what you need/ridding yourself of the rest?
If you've ever been handed boxes of your own childhood schoolwork, you know how overwhelming it can be. As you decide what to keep, ask whether your child would enjoy seeing the item again as an adult. Will it trigger a meaningful memory or reflect who they were at that stage of life? If not, it can be acknowledged, celebrated, and then discarded.
Now that we have a system, where do you recommend storing these papers so they don’t become cluttered on the counter?
Quick Toss Papers: Take action immediately and place completed forms back in a designated folder in your child's backpack. For important but non-urgent items, use a stacking tray, vertical wall file, or bulletin board labeled "Action" for each child.
Display/Celebrate for a Few Days: Use a small bulletin board, fridge clips, or a photo ledge in a family command center or your child's room.
Long Term Keepsakes: Store keepsakes in a clear file box with folders labeled by school year. You can create one yourself or purchase a ready-made version from sites like Etsy. To reduce artwork storage, consider scanning special pieces and creating a photo book online with companies like Shutterfly or Chatbooks. There are also companies like ArtKive and Plum Print that specialize entirely in taking boxes of children's art, digitizing them, and turning them into coffee table books.