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Angel
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| Posted: June 24 2011 at 9:03am | IP Logged
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How do you store the notebooks your children make? My usual routine is to put all the younger kids' work in a binder (everything that will fit anyway) and then to put everything from the year in a Rubbermaid container. The older kids sometimes produce bigger notebooks on one topic as well. But I have been unsatisfied with this system for a while. The kids can't revisit their work, and I lose the logs I make, which might be fruitful for me to reread from time to time to see what I've done for various age groups in the past.
On the other hand, we're a large family, and that's a lot of notebooks every year! If I store them on a shelf, won't that be a *lot* of shelf space?
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Angela
Mom to 9, 7 boys and 2 girls
Three Plus Two
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Mackfam
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| Posted: June 24 2011 at 9:38am | IP Logged
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At the end of every year, I gather all the notebooks, files and paper-work. I make a stack for each child. All papers come out of notebooks (which are then re-used). I purge A LOT...as in...throw away!! If something is important to a child, but I don't feel a need to keep it, I:
- offer to take a picture of the work....
- the child can choose to keep it in their own *special papers* bin. SPECIAL PAPERS BIN - each child has one, and it lives in their room either under their bed or on their bookshelf. I have children with differing levels of *need-to-keep*, and one child that becomes very sentimentally attached to things. The special papers bin is my solution for this child (and all my children) - it gives the child a space for special things to land, but it is a FINITE space. Birthday cards, notes, special pictures, ideas, pictures of fun projects and pictures of amazing structures that were built, are all kept in here. Once the bin is full, you don't get another bin. We only keep what fits in the bin. Therefore, if a child chooses to keep something from their school work in the bin, they understand that it is taking up space in the bin, and decide if they want to keep it in this bin or not. It's the child's decision regarding what is kept in the bin.
I keep just a few samples of work from the year, or things that are special to me/them and I wrap their stack of lesson plans, attendance, special papers in twine, label with name, age, year, grade. The whole bundle is never more than 3 - 4 inches in depth. I keep them bundled in those cardboard file boxes you can get at the office supply stores. Those get labeled clearly on the outside, too. They get stacked in the walk in attic. I have 4 boxes full now - it isn't an unmanageable group. I have friends that ONLY keep attendance for each child and that's it.
I definitely would not take up valuable real estate on my bookshelves with past work!!!!!!!!!
Now, that doesn't help you in the two areas you're looking for, (1) being able to re-read your logs, and (2) the ability of a child to visit past work.
Ideas:
How about some kind of cardboard filing system that might fit on the top of each child's shelf? It's out of the way, not too big, but still accessible if a child is looking for something. If you spiral bind/use book rings (they make really big ones)/sew a binding on the work and take them out of the notebook you should have a lot more room! The children can go through their stack of papers/notebooks and decide which things they might want to revisit and then you/they can bind them to keep. Perhaps you could do something similar with your logs and keep them in that useless cabinet over the fridge (do you have one of those?)...they're bound, accessible, but not taking up shelf real estate.
I guess my biggest suggestion is to get them out of notebooks and bound in some way so they're collected, but take up as little footprint as possible. Then, store in accessible but out of the way places.
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Jen Mackintosh
Wife to Rob, mom to dd 19 , ds 16, ds 11, dd 8, and dd 3
Wildflowers and Marbles
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Angel
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| Posted: June 24 2011 at 10:18am | IP Logged
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So you don't save all the copywork, etc.? What about the notebooks made with notebooking pages?
For example, my dd made a tropical birds notebook last year using these tropical birds pages. Would you dismantle a notebook like that, too?
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Angela
Mom to 9, 7 boys and 2 girls
Three Plus Two
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Mackfam
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| Posted: June 24 2011 at 11:00am | IP Logged
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Angel wrote:
| So you don't save all the copywork, etc.? |
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Nope. I might save a beginning page and one of their last pages to illustrate the progress made, but that's it.
Angel wrote:
| What about the notebooks made with notebooking pages? |
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I take them apart, unless it is an ongoing notebook and will be added to next year or ad infinitum....like their Wildflowers and Weeds notebooks.
Angel wrote:
| For example, my dd made a tropical birds notebook last year using these tropical birds pages. Would you dismantle a notebook like that, too? |
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Yes, but that's probably one I'd either save with the bundled work, or bind and save. AND...I'd only do that if she was done working on it. If she thought she'd continue to add to it, I'd leave the notebook out for her to access and work in.
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Jen Mackintosh
Wife to Rob, mom to dd 19, ds 16, ds 11, dd 8, and dd 3
Wildflowers and Marbles
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Erin
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| Posted: June 27 2011 at 12:38am | IP Logged
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At the end of the year, loose papers, notebooks (are carved up) and all are rebound into a big binder. They love looking at this 
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Erin
Faith Filled Days
Seven Little Australians
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Angel
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| Posted: June 27 2011 at 8:01am | IP Logged
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Is that one binder for everyone's work or per child, Erin? Do you keep the binders out indefinitely or do you store them at some point?
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Angela
Mom to 9, 7 boys and 2 girls
Three Plus Two
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Erin
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| Posted: June 27 2011 at 4:29pm | IP Logged
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Angela
One bound book per child. I break it up into areas; art(I have to cull there) dictation, history etc. I print up a title page for each. Actually I save these in Word so I just reprint each year. These books take a good while to put together at the end of the year, I try to do a couple of children per day and now older ones can help. Actually boys aren't interested in helping but the girls do.
We tend to keep the binders out for a few months and then they get boxed with the previous ones. As you can imagine binders for 6+ children (little ones want theirs too) adds up. But I wanted to give the children the message their written work is valued. (They were doing so little.)
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Erin
Faith Filled Days
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4Real Forums : Planning and Ordering our Days
Topic: storing old notebooks
