How I Keep On Top Of The Kids’ School Papers

With one kid in preschool, one in kindergarten, one in first grade, one in fourth, one in fifth, and one in eleventh, the amount of papers coming home each day from school is a little bit crazy.

I have sucked in paper organization department every single school year since becoming a parent.

But this year, things are different.

Six years ago, when we first moved to our house, I got these hanging file folders from Pottery Barn. In theory, they were going to keep all the kids’ papers organized.

But in actuality, they were a mess.

At the time, there were only three kids in school, and each kid had his own folder. One folder was empty. Last year each kid had their own folder.

They were supposed to come home from school, put the papers from their backpacks in their folder, and then I’d be able to look at them later, when I had time.

There were two problems with this:

1. I didn’t look at the papers very often.
2. The kids just mindlessly shoved tons of papers and other crap in them.

I needed a better system. So I thought back to my teaching days again.

When I taught, I had a couple trays for the kids to put papers in. Each tray had a purpose: one tray was for notes from home, one was for signed papers, one was for late work, or something along those lines.

There weren’t 20+ different trays in my classroom for each student’s stuff.

So I switched around the folders we have.

I labeled each one:

1. things that need to be signed and returned
2. general announcements and info
3. finished work
4. things signed by me to be returned to school

It’s only the first week of school, so we are still early in the process, but this has made a huge difference in preventing the papers from getting out of control. And there are definitely a ton of papers sent home that first week.

This system has also forced the kids to actually pay attention to the papers they are bringing home and to file them in the correct spot, rather than just shoving all their crap into the same spot.

As in any new routine, I need to make sure I consistently check the folders each day. But so far, so good.

I have signed all the stuff that needs to be returned (so far!) and placed it in the “signed stuff to return to school” folder. This also puts the responsibility on the kids to make sure they check that folder for the papers they need to return to school. I don’t have to hunt the kids down, or give them a signed paper and hound them to put it in their backpacks. It also helps if I’m not home when the kids get home from school. Rather than walking in the door and getting bombarded with kids waving papers in my face, I can just check the “sign and return” folder once I’m in the door.

If I don’t have time to look through everything, at least I can easily find the papers that need to get back to the teacher by a certain date.

That’s the goal I’ve set for myself this year with the papers. I want to make it through the whole year without getting a paper that says SECOND (or third) COPY in big red letters across the top.

It doesn’t have to be a hanging file folder system or anything fancy. It can be plastic trays or even cardboard boxes from Costco (the ones the peaches come in are actually really sturdy), and it has to be in a place that’s convenient for you and your kids. Our folders used to hang in the kitchen, until I realized that they might have looked kind of cool there, but they were a total pain in the butt to get to. Now they are hanging in our mudroom, about three feet from where the kids hang their back packs.

This is working great for us, and it might be a good solution for you, too!

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