Managing Kids’ Artwork

I’m pretty sure that most of you out there with young kids, like me, have the same problem of trying to keep the mountain of artwork created by our kids under control.

When Guerita first started “drawing” and later bringing artwork home from daycare, every one was a masterpiece. I wouldn’t dream of throwing them out and I displayed them on the fridge - I even framed one!

Of course, I soon realised that

a) she was going to produce A LOT of pieces of paper,

b) they were not all going to be the next Mona Lisa, and

c) there’s no way our fridge and walls were big enough to display them!

So, I had the problem of how to keep them under control. I still want to display some and have them as keepsakes for us of her learning development, but they can’t take over the house.

I know quite a few people have posted about their solutions to this problem, including an innovative idea of scanning the pictures and uploading to Flickr, which definitely saves a lot of space. Since we’re getting close to the end of the school year over here, I thought I’d share my method with you too, in case its an idea that appeals to anyone else out there. It’s nothing ground-breaking, just a simple solution to the space problem, and hopefully a nice memento for the kids when they’re older.

Since Guerita started pre-school and has a defined school year, I have begun making a collection of her work for each year. I hope to continue doing this for each of her school years and Chiq’s when the time comes.

The first step is obviously to sort through the artwork you have and decide what to keep. When I first started culling Guerita’s art it was really hard. I felt like an awful mother throwing away anything she had made and found it really difficult to decide what made the cut. Of course, it got easier and now I am quite ruthless in what I chuck. The things I look for in deciding what stays are not just pictures that I like the look of, but also that show a significant milestone or skill she has learned (like the first time she wrote her name) or have some sort of significance (like the first picture she drew with Chiq in it). Guerita brings home all her school work for the week on Friday afternoons so there’s not just art but writing and exercises she has done. I’ll keep the ones that demonstrate her development in these areas. I tend to do this culling periodically throughout the year so its not a huge job at the end.

Note: I have found that when it comes to actually throwing the discards in the bin, its best to do this without Guerita around!! She gets terribly hurt if she sees me chucking it out and will insist that she NEEDS them all and we CAN’T POSSIBLY throw them away, but of course, she doesn’t even realise or miss them if she’s not there when I chuck them. (Best to put them in the outside bin just before collection day, in case she happens to notice them in the inside bin and fish them out!)

Once I’ve whittled down the collection the next step is to put them all in a scrapbook. I’m not talking about the “modern” version of a scrapbook with borders and journalling and fancy paper (although you could do this if you had the time and inclination) but an old-fashioned book of blank pages with the cardboard cover.

In reality you could use any type of blank page book, but the reason I like the traditional old scrapbook is because the pages are a bit larger to accommodate some of those oversized paintings, and because the cover is easy to decorate (more on that in a minute).

So, as I said, its not groundbreaking - I just stick all the bits in a scrapbook, preferably in date order (if known). I often make a note on the page of the date or anything significant about the piece of work (eg the first ever homework she did). This part of the exercise is fun to do with Guerita now that she is able to use scissors, glue and sticky tape well and this can be a good activity to do in the summer holidays (particularly here where its so hot we need lots of indoor ideas!).

Once the contents of the book are in, I then turn to the cover. I should have mentioned earlier that when I am sorting through the pieces to keep, as well as those that get stuck inside the book, I also keep a collection of pictures etc to cut up and make into a collage for the scrapbook cover. These pics tend not to be the “milestones” or favourites but just a colourful representation of her year of work. For last year’s book in the middle of the front cover I placed a 3 and a 4 that she had coloured during the year (since she was aged 3 and 4 in that year) and also her name, written by her. Once the collage is finished and stuck on. I cover the whole thing with contact.

Here’s a couple of pictures of last year’s scrapbook:

Cover

Sample page (showing some of her weekly “report cards”)

So, over to you. How do you keep your kid’s art and school work under control?