Family and Parenting: Information For Families

Summertime is closing in but what will happen to all of those projects, papers, and creations that have made their way home from this past school year? You save school projects so that when your child grows up they can look back on their own creations. There are a few simple ways to continue on the path of a practical pack-rat while cherishing treasures from your child’s childhood.

Since scrap booking isn’t the most practical, or timely, way to embellish your kids school work, lets try something with the same organizational ideals just a lot less time consuming.

Buy a notebook that screams out at you (not literally). Take your child and head to the craft store, or retail store, and go to the school or office section. You will need a regular three ring binder. There are so many pre-designed notebooks and personalized options that the notebook alone can be fancy enough. If you prefer making a project out of this buy a regular notebook with a plastic slip cover on the front and back. Buy a thick piece of project paper and designing items to decorate it. Use pictures of your child and make neat frames with construction paper, color with markers, stickers, glitter, and whatever else you feel appropriate. Put the grade, age, school, and any other information on the cover you would like.

Be sure to pick up a plenty-pack of clear page protecting slip covers, made for three ring binders. These will be your greatest resource for filling the notebook. Use the covers to place regular sized papers and projects into the notebook. You can create a dual-page effect by decorating a piece of construction paper that explains what the project is, then slip the project paper in the same slip cover facing the opposite way. There are endless ways to decorate these notebooks but that’s the best part. If your child helps then they will remember creating their own memories as they get older.

The best part of these school year notebooks is that they will be compact, out of the way, and virtually indestructible. Instead of having random papers floating around in different boxes through the years you can have the all centrally located. You could even purchase one very large notebook and create several years of work into one notebook to save a little space. The real purpose is to show your child that you care about their memories and cherish their time in childhood.