By Gwen from Left Coast Mama

This year my eldest son started kindergarten, and along with everything else this has created an enormous amount of paper coming home crumpled in his backpack. Even though I am a teacher by trade, I have been away long enough that I had forgotten how much paper comes home almost every day. How do you deal with the amount of paper that comes home from school?

I have a place near the front door where my son is to put his backpack everyday. I admit this is a work in progress, though he is getting better. Once we have everyone in the house, I take a look in the bag and take out his snack dishes for him to bring upstairs while I take out the paper. I need to have a place where I put the things that need to be signed, gone over, and sent back to school. I also need a place to put the worksheets that my son brings home to show us, so that his dad actually gets a chance to see them before they are recycled.

I have toyed with many ideas including file folders, a couple of baskets and I have come to the conclusion that a couple of binders with pockets is the best solution for our family. I like this system for a few reasons.

• One of the binders becomes a scrapbook for my son’s art with small or odd shaped pieces going into clear plastic binder sleeves.
• The other binder keeps scholastic book orders, field trip forms and a record of all notices sent home. I think that when my youngest is also in school the binders will be a lifesaver so that nothing gets lost in the shuffle and we also have a place for his artwork.

Once you have these two places carving out a few minutes each night or every couple of nights to go through the paper, put dates in your calendar, and fill out what you need is in order.

One other thing that I really suggest, and made my life much easier as a teacher, is to put important paperwork and any form that also requires money in a small ziplock bag with your child’s name. Even when your child is older and more responsible, the ziplock helps to keep things together and out of the mess of their backpacks.

Are there any ideas that you find work for you?

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