Setting Up Children's Journals

What Do I Keep, Where Do I Keep It, and How Much Is Enough?

Also see:  [Files] [Paperwork]  [Photograph Albums]

     Many families have a proliferation of children's paperwork.  There is homework papers from school, art work, invitations, and programs.  How do you get your children's paperwork organized?  What should be kept and what should be discarded?  How much is enough?  Where and how should it stored?  

    May I suggest that you set up a simple, systemized way to deal with children's important papers.  Soon after a child is born, purchase and prepare an 8-1/2" x 11"  binder (a different color for each child of your family) with twenty dividers, labeled with the current year and the succeeding nineteen years.  Purchase a ream of 68-pound card stock (available at office supply stores), some plastic sheet protectors, an archival glue stick, and photo corners.  Also purchase a plastic binder pencil holder.  Keep your glue stick and photo corners, along with a writing pen, in the pencil holder (at the front of your binder) for convenience in updating the journals.  Punch a stack of the card stock and put it in the rear of the binder along with the plastic sheet protectors.  Now you are ready!

    When you decide a paper is worth keeping, three-hold punch it, and put it in the binder behind the appropriate year.  If the paper is too small to punch and put in the binder, say a newspaper article announcing the birth of your child, glue it to a piece of cardstock, write any comments you deem necessary, and place the cardstock in the child's binder behind the first divider.  You can add other small items to this same sheet of cardstock as desired.  Some items, like certificates, might better be saved using photo corners.  If you don't have alot of time right when a piece of paper need storing, slip it into a plastic sheet protector and put it behind the appropriate divider until you have extra minutes to properly preserve it.

    As one binder is filled, another is purchased (of the same color), the remaining labeled dividers and supplies are put into it, and you are ready for more paperwork.  For most children, about six-eight binders will be enough to hold all their important "paper" journal items until they are finished with high school.  They will enjoy immensely going through their journals as they grow, looking at their past, more rudimentary artwork and their simplistic handwriting.

    Most children's art work can safely be saved by punching and putting it in the binder, as can homework.  However, remember you only need so many original drawings from a particular season of the child's life to represent their artistic interests for that period, so select carefully what you save.  Children will bring home far more school paperwork that you will want to keep.  It is wise to set it aside in a "TO FILE" folder for a month or so before permanently putting in the journal.  This allows some seasoning to take place before final decisions are made.  Also, children don't want to remember anything but the best of their school work, so only save 100% spelling tests, near perfect science, math and history tests, and any papers with positive teach comments.  Be sure to save everything autobiographical that the child writes!  It will become priceless as time passes.

    School projects which are too large for keeping in the binder might best be displayed in the home for a month or so.  Then, as the season for display wanes, take a picture of the child and their project, and hold a "project" funeral.  The photos can be saved without the hassle and volume of large science projects, drama scenery, and three-dimensional crafts gathering dust in the home, yet the memories are secure.  (This excludes any items which might be reused for younger sibling's needs.  Many a science project has seen an appropriate re-use to save parents time and trouble.)

    Each child can also have a sturdy storage box for their bulkier treasures, one box per child.  Encourage them to draw on their treasure box to personalize it and then use it to keep their valuables in.  This helps confine messes that would otherwise spill out into their bedrooms and sometimes other areas of the house.

    Good luck!  Keep what is important, keep it neatly in a binder, and enjoy your children's journals for many years to come.  It takes only minutes to find the right child's binder, punch paperwork, and put it behind the right divider once you have your system set up.

     Find more helpful home organization ideas in the "House of Order" Handbook.  

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