Organizing Artwork

When it comes to my kids’ artwork and school projects I have a terrible, terrible time throwing it away. There are a couple of reasons for this.  First, I find what Hadley and Harper create incredibly interesting. Take Harper’s guys, for example.  It’s been so much for to watch them go from this:

To this:

The other reason I like to hang on to it is because it helps me remember what was going on while they colored a picture, wrote a story, or sketched out a fairyland. Here are some things the girls colored at BW3s on our way home from Michigan last week.

Hadley’s sea creatures are at a gym and Harper made a “Purple Get Ready Station,” while Jesse and I talked about the work and school, where we want to be next year at this time, what we want to be doing. You know, the fun-hard, exciting-scary stuff.

But oh my goodness it’s hard to figure out a way to keep all the stuff the kids make.  I simply cannot keep all of it, so here’s what I came up with.  Over the school year, I hung some of their work around the house in cheap picture frames that I can easily pop the artwork in and out of.  I also bought a filing box that I would collect their work as they brought it home.  Finally, I purchased transparency sheets and white binders and sat the girls down to sort through and pick pieces they’d like to keep.  The rest got (sniff, sniff) recycled.

I loved listening to the girls’ talk about what they remember about each worksheet, project, and doodle.  Harper giggled at her earlier guys, at the fact that some of her pictures were fifty shades of blue (her first favorite color and pun intended). Hadley picked up different math and reading worksheets from Kindergarten and told me the ones she wanted to keep were the ones that were particularly challenging.  “So I’ll remember how to do them for first grade.”  Such a responsible person, this child.

Once they picked their favorite pieces, I slid them into the transparency sheets.  Then I put their class picture into the front pocket of the binder.

And I had them each fill out a little worksheet to put in the front of binder.

Hooray for art because it keeps us from getting bored.  That’s early Heart of Darkness stuff right there.

I also wrote each of them a letter and slid it into one of the transparency pockets.  I tried to tell the girls what I remember about the previous school year, what some of my favorite pictures and project were, etc.

Finally, I made these little cards for Hadley and Harper to write any thoughts down that they’d like when they go back to look at their art scrapbooks.

I like this little system.  I have a place to collect their stuff all year, and then for one afternoon we have ourselves a little art party.  Plus, then I don’t have to get rid of stuff like this:

Or this:

Feel free to grab the templates for the Portfolio Submission Reflection Worksheet. The cards are on the second page if you’d like.