Updating The School Albums: Part 1

This week is my girl's last week of school. Hard to believe we have knocked out another school year already. With the end of the year, I am seeing lots and lots of papers come through the door lately. Now that they are in the higher up grades, it seems like they don't bring papers home all that often, throughout the year. It's like they save it all up until the end, and then dump it all on me at once. So it's definately time to do a little work on their school albums.

I want to back up just a bit, for anyone new to my blog, or for those of you that havn't read any previous posts about my school albums. I am using the original school kit from Becky Higgins. It's hasn't been available for years, but you can occasionally still find some on Ebay. Although I do know that Becky is working on a totally new school kit, that incorporates a lot of her Project Life system.

THIS is the post where I finally forced myself to gain control over the girls school stuff. I had it organized, but I hadn't really gone through the piles. I then posted about what came out of that, and when I finally put all of these albums together, in this post HERE. This was all back in February of 2009. Ages ago, right? A year and a half later, in September 2010, I posted HERE with an updated look at the albums. In fact, I had a video, walking you through one of Alyssa's albums.

 

So, is anyone still with me, after all that backtracking? LOL. Sorry. Just wanted to cover everything in one post, with all the links and important stuff. Now, back to what I have done recently. The following photos were all taken back in February, of this year. I felt like I had a good amount of papers and school stuff, to spend a bit of time putting some of it away. I find that if I set aside a bit of time, twice a school year (somewhere in the middle, and then again at the end), I am able to keep everything caught up.

When I'm ready to get started, I pull out their albums. I have four albums total set up for Alyssa's school years, and four albums total for Sarah school years. So I just pull out whatever album holds the grade they're in, and the grade I'm working on. I also pull out extra page protectors, in varying sizes. I have the 12x12 pages inside the albums. But I love to add in 8.5x11 page protectors for awards, class photos, and report cards. And I have mixed in the 6x12 page protectors for holding concert programs.

Thoughout the year, I keep two simple folders in a drawer in the kitchen. One for Alyssa and one for Sarah. When they bring home progress notes, report cards, awards, concert programs, school photos, or any random homework or tests, I just toss them in their folder. It's a simple way to keep things in one place, until I'm ready to put everything into their school albums.

Just because I put something in the folder, doesn't mean I will necessarily keep it. The school work, homework, and tests are something I weed though at the end of the year and select just a handful of things to keep.

I always keep the awards, report cards, programs, schedules, etc.

Then I take over the old scrap island (that now resides in the playroom) and spread everything out. I sort papers, trim school photos, put report cards in order, cut out newspaper clippings, and try to make sense out of everything I have saved. It's messy and confusing, even though I'm really only working on one school year at a time. Which I still don't understand. It should be easier, right ;)

The girls have their last day of school on Friday. So my plan is to get everything in order, and then I'll share part two of this school album update. Stay tuned!

Comments

[Heather Crawford]

Ugggh, this has been on mind too...I do CZ's digital album like the one she had in her book...Chaz's is somewhat caught up, but needs to be really caught up..Bailey's I haven't even started on (poor second child)...and I need to sort the stuff...ugggh, the stuff..I just shove Chaz's stuff in one of his bottom drawers..lol..can't wait to see what you do...I sort of wish I would have just waited on the new BH PL version..maybe I'll do that for Bailey? will have to see what it looks like...and maybe just keep up the digital for Chaz..he's a boy, so he won't care..lol

[Katrina Hunt]

Can I have your desk? My table is 4 x4 foot and I don't have enough room! LOL You are so organized!!! Good thing the pups don't have those kinds of things, I would never get it done! hugs, Katrina

[Michelle]

All of Laura's & Brit's papers, report cards, art projects etc. are all in a rubbermaid tote. One for each. School photos are in my scraproom. You have a great system!! One of these days, I will tackle those totes!! :)

[Eileen Van Dyke]

I love when you do these posts because it totally inspires me to work on my kids albums! Please keep it up because my daughter will be a Senior next year and I have ALL 12 years to catch up on in one yer, so I can show them at her grad party!!

[dawn]

I love that you do these for your girls, they look amazing!! Would you believe the teachers started having clean out folder and locker days thru the year now. So of course I hardly have any papers for my kids, some teachers still hold all the tests till the last day of school also. For now I just keep the concert programs and print off their report cards for me to have. The new thing is also to be more green so no more extra newsletters and such come home, everything is on the computer so If i do want something I will have to print it out.

Enjoy your last few days of 2 less kids in the house and CONGRATS on surviving another school year. Any plans for the girls this summer? JOBS? DRIVING SCHOOL???

[Janet]

You are doing a great job with the girls' school albums. Since I homeschool and due to State Law I have to stay up-to-date with all school work and such so at the end of the school year, I have my binder done and completed. Just no pictures. I too am using Becky's school kit. I have all the layouts done (changed it up a bit to adapt to homeschool)- it is just having to go back and print pictures. That is the hold up for me. But it sure is fun to see all the changes and growth. LOVE your school posts- makes me put mine on the front burner too!

Smiles from PA!
Janet

[Tiffany M]

Thank you for sharing your process and the video. I remember when Becky's kits came out. I only had one child at the time and I was afraid that I wouldn't buy enough of them so I had one for each child so I didn't buy any. Figured something better would come out by the time I needed it. So glad that she is working on a new one as my oldest starts Kindergarten next year!
You made me feel better about what I have saved from my son's preschool and that not ALL of it making needs to make it in!
Love the 6x12 page protector solution. Going to use that!
Thanks again for sharing!

[{vicki}]

Thank you so much for this post!---
My son just finished 7th grade and I've only got his school album finished through 3rd grade---:(
That's my goal for this summer---get it up-to-date!

[Carla]

I love your organizing process and one day...some day I will get mine going ;)

[Ruth G]

Wow! I feel like such a newbie seeing your posts from 2009! Thanks for including those links, though, so I could see the whole story!
It's such a wonderful thing to do, preserving those memories for your girls. I don't have very much from my childhood at all, not even pictures (the result of my parents getting divorced and then us moving around quite a bit - lots of life was shed to make each move easier!) As a result, I've kept just about everything that came home from school. I also try and take lots of pictures of mundane things, like the school building and playgrounds because some day they won't remember what they looked like. I have spent lots of time photographing cute projects that are too big to put into books. I do have a central place where I keep all their school related stuff as I deem it "memory worthy", but there's still tons from their younger years (before I realized how much paper was accumulating) that I need to sort through. Once school is actually over, I'll probably try to tackle this a little more head-on, although I do have some other projects that I want to get done, like a printer's tray for my hubby's birthday and a gift album for a friend. Hopefully before they head to college I will have the scrapbooking part started:-)!

[Sara Rossi]

I like that you post this since it serves as a reminder to me that I need to work on mine! ;) Thanks for all the tips!