Wrangling Children’s Artwork with Memory Boxes

Enter, the memory box! This is simply a file box with files for each year of the child’s life. This is where you can store their beautiful masterpieces, awards, special notes from friends and teachers, end of year report cards, etc.

Here are my tips for keeping it under control:

• ️Limit yourself to what can fit in this box. There is a folder for each year. There is no need to keep more than that. Trust me, when your child is 30, they won’t want or need more than what can fit in this box!
• ️Only keep your FAVORITE pieces or those that are of particular importance to your child. If you have a child who has a hard time parting with papers, give them a display area in the home. The fridge, a cork board, etc. Let them display their works and when it fills up, let them decide what goes in the box and what goes away. You can also try limiting them to a specific number of items for each school year.
• ️Only keep the end of year report card. It contains the same information as the quarterly report cards and progress reports on one sheet.
• ️Before placing an item in the box, make sure it has their name and grade on the back. If the box ever gets knocked over or out of order, you can easily fix it.
• ️If possible, place the box in an easily accessible place and leave the lid off. This will make it easy to drop papers in as they come home.

I would love to hear how this works out for you!

Happy Organizing!