A No Fail Way to Create School Year Memory Books for Your Kids

Raise your hand if you have years of photos stored somewhere on a hard drive or on your phone?  Keep your hand up if every year you swear that this is the year you are going to organize them chronologically into beautiful digital photo books or carefully hand-crafted scrapbooks.  And now wave if this never happens.  Like ever.  

Me. At home. Waving.

Saving memories in some artistic and dazzling way is not my strength! 

But, I am a big believer in the joy of looking back, especially at things like this…

So, when my youngest first started school, I had two thoughts:

1. He sure brings home a lot of, what shall I call them, treasures.  
2. What on earth do I do with all of these treasures?

Because he was my first child to go to school, I felt like everything he brought home was special and the most amazing thing ever in the history of kids going to school; therefore, I needed to keep everything!  

So I started by keeping it all in a neat little pile that quickly became big and messy.  It soon evolved into a stack of paper so high I could have fueled our summer camp fires for years.  Just looking at Paper Mountain caused me stress because I don’t like clutter.

I needed a solution that let me manage the volume of items that spilled out of his backpack each day and that satisfied my need to minimize clutter.  Most importantly though, I wanted to find some way of holding tight to memories in a manner that was easy and actually doable.

It is important to me that when my kids are older, they have something that lets them meander back through their childhood.

So, I came up with a no fail system of “School Year Binders” that has worked for me. As you can see, on the outside my binders aren’t dazzling and they aren’t beautiful.  But, the gold is on the inside. One day my kids will be able to look at and touch the things that remind them of their friends, experiences and moments.  

If you are a mom sending your son or daughter off to school for the first time, or your kids have been in school for a while but you have never been able to get a handle on all of the stuff, give this a try.   

Had I waited until I had enough time to create beautiful and artistic scrapbooks, I bet this sweet picture of my daughter holding her “blankies” would still be lost in a pile somewhere, or worse yet, long ago buried in a recycling bin.

That’s how I know it works.

Supplies for School Year Memory Binders

There is no need to shop at a scrapbooking store for my method of saving memories.  Instead, search your home or make a quick visit to a Staples or Walmart for a few basic office supplies.

File Folder
Binder
Sheet Protectors
Cardstock
Scissors & Tape

How to Build a School Year Memory Binder

Here is the process I have followed for 9 years now (and counting) and it requires little time and effort.

Label a file folder for each of your children.

Determine, with your child, what treasures are to be kept and discard the rest (without guilt).

Write the month and year on the back of each item.  Sometimes I remember to do this and sometimes I don’t, but it is helpful!

Put it in the file folder.

Approximately every 3 months, transfer items from the file folder to the binder in chronological order. Many things can just slide right into a sheet protector.

Tape items that need a bit of reinforcement, or are too small for the sheet protectors, onto cardstock. For example, if we go to an MLB game, I may save the ticket stub and tape it to cardstock before adding it to the binder.

The most creative and time consuming thing I do (and I use this term loosely) is create a simple Title Page that I write on throughout the year that includes things like:

Year
Teacher’s Name
Grade
Age
Friends at School
Favourite Things To Do At School
When I Grow Up I Want to Be
Something I Learned at School This Year
What I Am Looking Forward to in Grade _____

I’ve made a sample Title Page Printable in PDF format that you can feel free to use if you’d like to.

I also make a quick cover page to slide into the front of the binder just so the binder is labelled but this is optional.

Items to Include

Although the binders are organized by school year, I also use them for other non-school related special items such as birthday cards, hockey team photos, and summer camp certificates.

Here is a more complete list of items that I include in my kids’ binders:

School photo
Class photo
Report cards
Awards
Art work
Stories
School projects & activities
Awards & certificates
Track & field ribbons
Fall fair ribbons
Team photos
Tournament programs
Copies of letters they have sent to Santa
Birthday & Christmas cards they have received
Cards & crafts they have made for us
Vacation mementos

As you can see, there are a lot of memories packed into these binders!

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Summary

All of this writing probably makes this seem like another daunting project for moms who are already too busy.  So let me summarize this in a way that proves that this system for storing memories reallly is easy and anyone can do it.

As your kid brings stuff home from school, choose some items to put in a file folder.

About 3 times per year, put the stuff from the folder into a binder by shoving it inside a sheet protector.

When you have 15 minutes, print the Title Page PDF, fill it out with your son or daughter, and put it at the start of the binder.

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I debated on whether to write this post because my idea is not pretty.  I don’t have a beautiful picture to post of a fancy memory book.

But, by keeping it simple, I now have years of memory books for my kids.

I know that at the end of the day, they will be touched by seeing what they made and did as children, not by fancy things that I added to make the pages look good.

So the bar is low.  Just high jump it in your whatever your style may be (scissor kick, back flop, front roll, whatever works) and enjoy looking back on the memories!

Let me know if you give it a try! KJ

And one more for good measure…