Guest Post: School File Boxes

It's me again . . .

This time I'm going the way of one of my favorite things - organization!  Yippee!  Again, I was inspired by someone else's blog and tweaked it to make my own.  Blue Cricket Design had this post about school stuff and it reminded me of three years ago when my mom mailed 4 boxes to me of stuff I had decided to save while I lived there.  I had collected it, I had stashed it, and my mom was tired of storing it for me.  The boxes sat in my basement for at least a year before I decided to even crack them open.  I am not a clutter girl, and I am not that sentimental.  There was so much stuff I threw away.  I had saved every report card ever, even though the last one of the year had a copy of all the previous ones attached to it.  I saved every recital program I ever performed in.  I saved notes friends had tossed to me across the aisles.  You get the idea.  They were all thrown in boxes in no order whatsoever.  Again, not my mom's fault (just in case she's reading!)

I now have a 2nd grader and a pre-kindie.  I purchased file boxes with lids for each child.  Baby M. is far away from school, but I wanted all the boxes to stack ontop of each other and there is no guarantee that they won't change the design in 3 years.  I like the legal size hanging files more than letter size - a lot of kids papers fit better in this.

  On the front of each folder I glued a picture and their signature (which is darling, but was glued on after taking this picture).

I put manilla file folders in some of the grades - my daughter took art lessons last year, so in her 1st grade folder, is a special file for her art pictures.  We haven't started that up this year, but probably will again and will make another folder for 2nd grade art lessons.  The girls have bows. 

The boys have D-rings to make it look like a belt. 

I just use hot glue and think it really adds to the cuteness factor (but don't tell that to the boys in my family).

I had my friend cut out their names in vinyl lettering and applied it to the front and side.

I have learned that a lot of teachers save the best work and present it to you at the end of the year.  I taught elementary school for 5 years and did this!  We only save the absolute favorite work in the file boxes.  Then we put in all the stuff the teachers give us that they have been saving all year.

I love that they can stack, I just have them in my basement.  I love that they are easy to access and I don't mind if my daughter looks at some of her old work, because it is so easy to find and easy to put away.

All in all, I can't think of a thing I don't like about this.  Now, when my children have their own home, I can send them a nice organized file box of their memories - but I might just keep this all to myself.