Organizing at the End of the School Year


Pretty soon summer will be here and another school year will come to an end. For many with school-aged children, this can be a time of immense stress. Schedules will change, daycare arrangements may need to be reconfigured (along with work schedules), and there will be stacks of papers, artwork, and supplies piled up that your children have brought home over the course of the year and at the school year’s end.
What should you do with all that school stuff? Here are some ideas.

1. Academic School Work: It is always wise to hold onto all graded and completed papers until after report cards are finalized. This way, you have documentation to support any grading discrepancies. After the final grades are in, ask your child if they need to keep anything for the following year. If they don’t need it, create a memory box and save a few stories or papers they wrote. Let the rest go.

2. Artwork: Yes, you can save all of your child’s artwork but should you? Will you feel guilty if you throw something away? Ask your child to pick out 2 or 3 of their favorite drawings or paintings. On the back of the work, have them write a short sentence about what inspired them to create the piece of art. Put these pieces away in a memory box. If you ever go back to look over their past masterpieces, a few special pieces will be more meaningful than an unorganized heap of everything they created.

3. Binders, Pencils, Crayons, and Supplies: Look at the condition of used school supplies. Is something so worn-out it isn’t worth saving? Is your child left at year end with broken pencil pieces and ripped binders? Toss anything that is in poor condition. If there are leftover school supplies in good condition, put those supplies away and make a list of what you have stored. When it is time to shop for more supplies in the fall, you will already have a list of what you don’t need to buy.

Happy Summer!

–Jenny Power, Absolutely Organized
Contact Us