Tips from the Trenches: paper and kids

About 3 weeks into the school year I realized I was in real peril of drowning in preschool paper-ness.  My initial response was to purge - but there was a lot of drama and heartbreak attached to that approach.  (Sir O can out-drama most of the girls his age)  Here's the compromise that's working beautifully for us:



I purchased a pack of fat 3-ring binders and a massive box of plastic page-protectors at Costco, filled the binder with the page protectors, and I let Sir O start filling it up with his school papers, church handouts, and drawings.  Any papers he left around the house were fair game for garbage - but if he put them in his binder, (quickly misnomered his "book-order") then they were safe.

Every so often I'll sneak in there and curate a bit, but I think we'll be able to fit the whole year in the binder if I get rid of some of the less hilarious stuff.

This way Sir O can tote the whole gargantuan thing around the house when he wants to peruse his work, he can easily take it to show his grandparents, and there's no real risk of pages getting torn out (nor do I have to be forever finding the hold punch).  And the need to organize or scrapbook later is pretty well eliminated.

I'm telling you, it's a winning combination.  Now, to find a solution for the oversized and 3-D projects.  I'm afraid my only commitment for now is to take a photo.  After that I let them float around the house until the boys have thoroughly destroyed them, and then they quietly disappear in the night.