Banishing the school paper monster

Yesterday was the first day of school and already my three remaining cherubs have attempted to rebuid the piles of paper clutter that seem to be an inevitable part of opening the backpack after school. It only took a bit to remind them of our system of papers. For those of you new to this blog you can find my solution detailed in the November 2, 2009 and Nov 4, 09 entries. This has worked for almost 7 years straight now so I feel confident in it. You do need a file cabinet drawer or file box for each child, but you can start any time with just a single folderkept in a safe, available place for each child. My system will get you from kindergarten or day care all the way through high school with a single folder for each year of school with key papers that you and your child have chosen and a simple way to locate items from any given year. The oldest of my second group of kiddos recently moved into her own apartment and is preparing to take her file [condensed one last [?] time] with her as she transitions to independent living.

We sorted through the paper flood of the first two days of school and chose a few to keep either for reference purposes [school field trip rules etc.] or for fun... the 'Welcome to x grade' letters from their teacher. Into the folders they went. I did not take a first day of school picture this year so the photo for the front of the folder will wait a bit, but the teacher's name and class schedule have already been attached. We are ready to go... The school paper monster has met its match!