Thursday, May 27, 2010
How to Create a System for Incoming School and Art Work
In my previous blog I highlighted a few questions to ask yourself so you can decide what to keep and what to recycle. I also promised you a system for dealing with incoming school and artwork.
Here are a few suggestions on what to do with the artwork you’re not going to keep:
· Use the back of the artwork for stationery! Your child can write a little letter to grandma and grandpa, an aunt or uncle, or a friend and send it off in the mail. Your child will feel good giving it to someone they love, your relatives will love getting it, and you won’t have to worry about where to store it. It’s a win-win situation.
· Keep a small box of the artwork to use as wrapping paper for gifts to special relatives and friends. Again it will delight everyone involved.
· Buy a small, unfinished toy chest for each kid’s room. They can keep the special work that you want to keep inside, and the outside provides a new surface to decorate with their artwork. Simply decoupage the artwork as a collage on the surface of the chest. This will use up a lot of the work and be a great project for your child to do for fun.
Here are a few suggestions on what to do with the artwork you are going to keep:
· We have a "gallery" in the playroom to hang lovely pieces on a rotating basis. The one pictured above is from Pottery Barn but you can create one easily by putting using two nails, one at each end of a wall and hang a string between them (picture hooks, screws, etc will work). Then just use clothespins to hang the artwork on the string. You could put it in a hallway or even in your child’s room.
· For the bigger artwork, clay projects etc, give each child a shelf that is theirs to decorate with their work. When it’s full they have to choose what items to give away. By then they’ll be ready to move on to something else.
· The toy chest I mentioned earlier can be used to store the treasures that you want to keep. Make a special portfolio for each school year to hold the awards, report cards and work. All you need is two pieces of poster board taped together on three sides, leaving a long side open. You can cut the poster board to fit in the chest. Have your child write on the front his/her name and the school year and if you have extra school pictures, you could laminate one on the front of the portfolio.
· I routinely take pictures of various projects/drawings/paintings with my child holding them as a keepsake. You can place them in a large album. Or at the end of the school year, they can be saved onto a CD that is labeled with their name and the year. Not only does it make a great screen saver on my work computer, but it’s also a great gift for close friends and relatives.
So my advice is as soon as your kids show you their work, discuss what to do with it next. For the most part children are more interested in the process of doing rather than keeping. Having a system, will help them learn that throughout life it’s good to sort and get rid of things. That way you can enjoy it more rather than live with a bunch of clutter.
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