When my first born finished Pre-K a few years back, I kept a folder of every piece of paper and artwork he brought home from school.

Now I have three kids and a closet full of grocery bags stuffed with old art projects, class work, yearbooks, dioramas, homemade instruments, hand prints and poems that still bring tears to my eyes. As I prepare for the school year to begin, I am overwhelmed with this mountain of paperwork and before it becomes an avalanche, I've decided to tackle it head on.

At first, this journey through the sea of ever-important papers appeared to be an challenging task, but as I dove in and made some progress I was able to see the light at the bottom of the bag. Here are a few things that worked for me.

Create an Art Gallery

Kids love to see their artwork displayed up on the walls. Start going through your kids' artwork, selecting only the pieces that are special or represent their unique personality. You may or may not let them help you do this; some kids just can't part with anything they create. Set aside the best ones and put the others in the trash. Then get some cute frames a hammer and nails and get ready to create an art wall.  Let them decide where to hang them and then sit back and reminisce.

Snap it Up

As kids get bigger, so does the size of their school projects. Let them select one special project from the year to hold onto to, then get out your camera and take a picture of all the rest of their masterpieces; they will now live forever in the computer and not at the bottom of your closet collecting dust. It may be hard for your budding artist or young scientist to get rid of their piece de resistance, so why not help them put together a small photo album, showcasing the year's accomplishments. Looking back on the previous years albums will be sure to spark a lot of interesting conversations.

Box it Up

It's inevitable; your kids are going to bring home a ton of paperwork from school. I tackle the onslaught of papers by immediately separating them according to importance.  If I need to respond to something I clip it together and put in on the magnetic board in the kitchen. I use one for each kid and put the item that needs the quickest response on top.  Then, when we're running out the door, I can check to see if I've turned everything in for the week. As for the rest of the papers, I'm trying something new this year. Each child has a colored coated plastic bin and everything, except homework, will go in there. At the end of the year I can just open it up and weed through all the items, keeping only the things, which are important.

Welcome back to school, I hope it's an eventful year!