School Paper OVERLOAD!

I have spent the last two afternoons completely stressed out and overwhelmed with school papers.
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It started Monday afternoon when Ryan came home with his new homework binder. The problem is that Ryan's class started getting daily homework assignments last week, when we were on vacation. There were a few things that happened to make the paperwork unmanageable. There were past homework assignment and detailed instructions from last week that we needed to catch up on. Plus, Ryan had shoved in-class projects that were in his cubby from last week randomly into the binder; these had no instructions since they were done in class. AND we still had assignments and work to do for Monday and the rest of the month of September. The homework binder combined with keep-at-home reference forms for writing practice, in-class assignments with at-home follow up work, the monthly school newsletter, the weekly class newsletter, forms for class t-shirts and yearbooks, forms that needed to be completed and returned to the teacher the next day and a packet of information about the PTSA was all enough to send me over the edge.
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I needed to feel structure. I needed to find a way to organize all of this paperwork. What I really needed was a system for all incoming paperwork, moving forward.
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Here's what I came up with:
- "Reading materials" will go in a designated area on our junk counter with the intention of reading them while Ryan does independent assignments at the kitchen table. Once they're read, they'll either go directly into the recycle bin or into another area if an action is needed. (if a check needs to be written or something needs to be signed and returned, etc.)
- "Action needed items" will go on top of Ryan's closed backpack and will be dealt with after dinner, when I make lunches for the next day.
- "Completed assignments" and artwork will go on the fridge, then will either get passed on to grandparents or hidden at the bottom of the recycle bin. I'll keep some choice pieces and take pictures of others to scrapbook at the end of the school year.
- "At-home follow up work" will stay in the inside pocket of his homework binder to be done after his homework is completed IF we have time. If the homework takes too long, I'm not going to feel guilty about tossing it in the recycle bin. It's unlikely we'll get to it later and I don't need the clutter.
- "Keepsakes" will go into a 3-ring binder that I have designated for Kindergarten. I mentioned before how I plan to have one binder for each child for each year of school. I'll only keep enough to fit in the binder. Period. As it is, 15 binders (counting pre-school) when they graduate high school will be A LOT of keepsakes!
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This post titled What To Do With Kids' Artwork by Simple Mom compiles all of the ideas I've heard of, used and tried over the years for ALL of the arts and crafts our kids create. It's worth reading if you have little ones.
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One other thing I'm doing to capture Ryan each month of the year is this idea from Becky Higgins. She's providing the template pages to customize for yourself and it's very low maintenance, but I know will be priceless to look back on later.
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Here are links to the cover page and August's 2-page spread to start the 8.5x11 project. (click here if you're a Mac user) I had Ryan and Kaylin each write their name and do a self portrait last night (because I clearly wasn't stressed enough...) and they turned out so sweet. I put them in the front cover pocket of their 3-ring binders for their keepsakes for the year. I'm changing the August pages a bit to include the pictures I took of Ryan at the beginning of the year. (I don't have a class picture or a picture of the backpacks, but I do have a picture of him at his desk and of him with his teacher.)

All of the pink circles at the bottom of Kaylin's picture (above) are her toes and the blue circles on either side of her head are ears and hands. I have no idea what the rest of the black markings are all over the page. As far as I was concerned, the picture was complete before the black marks took over, but it's not my picture so what do I know? Here's Ryan's: