School binder

I am a BIG collector of memories. I think, in part, its because I have such a bad memory. Storing things away helps me remember them when I look at them. For my children, who I know will forget much of their early years, I feel like I have to store their memories for them.

For a couple of years now I have stored "special" school papers in a big closed folder type thingy. One for each child per year kind of thing. I think that system works ok, but the folder can get ripped if it's handled too much and the contents can get all out of sorts, so I am trying something new this year.

Behold, The Memory Binder:

Da, da, da, dun:

Inside I store all sorts of things (obviously). Today I'll be demonstrating Tabitha's Kindergarten binder.

When you open it up I have her class picture in a page protector. Easy to see and not so easy to bend or smudge. Well, I suppose with kids it will still be easy to destroy, but hopefully it won't be too bad.

Enoch saw this picture hanging in the school office and asked if he could have it when they were done. They said yes! I glued the glasses she's wearing in the picture on top. (Tabitha is the one with her head turned in the yellow shirt and overall dress)

I like to keep at least one copy of papers that she does regularly.

This is a certificate she earned during the year.

Larger art work gets folded in thirds and hole punched in.

Some pieces were too small to be punched or I just wanted to keep them whole. For those, I glued them onto construction paper and added them to the book.

Right now they are sitting on my book shelf, but they'll eventually make their way to a more secure storage location. Assuming I do this until about 5th grade for the four kids I should have about 24 binders. YIKES!

Do you have any good memory storage ideas I should know about???

For other tips, check out Works for me Wednesday at We are THAT family.

Take a few minutes to check out my other back to school posts if you haven't done so already. ~Michelle