School books ...

I'm in the process of putting together my kid's portfolio binders for school. Unlike some states, I'm not required to keep samples of their work, but I do anyway. This picture shows one of my bookshelves and the girl's binders. Nichelle began homeschooling when she was in 4th grade and Nicole was in 2nd grade. As you can see, I have a lot of these binders. On the other side of the room is another bookshelf where the boy's binders are. Of course, they've been homeschooled since the very beginning, so they'll have more binders than the girls. I separate the subjects with tabs and include most of the work they've done. Also included are their attendance record, curriculum used, copies of their weekly schedule, and artwork.

Do you keep your kid's school work? I have a container in the garage with stuff the girls made when they were in private school. I've gotten rid of a lot of it because it was too big and bulky. Before we moved, I took pictures of a lot of their artwork that we weren't able to pack up, so I have pictures as well. I have absolutely NONE of my school work from when I was a kid. The only thing I have is my clay handprint that I made in kindergarten. That's it. For whatever reason, my mom didn't save any of my school stuff. I guess maybe that's why I'm so adamant about saving my kid's stuff. When we make a craft or food project for school that I know can't go into a binder, I take a picture and include it in our yearbook. Our school yearbook is basically like a digital scrapbook of all the things we've done throughout the year and these binders are samples of the work they've done.

I've been hunched over on the floor for days, ripping out pages and punching holes, so I can put everything into the kid's binders. My back is killing me, but it's a big project and I have to do it on the floor to scatter everything out. I'm a little late doing this, as I like to do it in the summer, but with Nicole starting college, I had other priorities. It's a weird feeling because it makes me realize that there's so little I remember from school when it comes to school work. I remember incidents and doing certain things like reading programs or plays. Actual school work I don't recall much of -- at least not for grade school. I remember a little more for high school. One thing my kids love doing is pulling out their binders and going through them. They see how much they've learned and progressed. A lot of times they laugh at silly things they've done, like draw devil horns on pictures of people in their workbooks and such. And now that the girls are done with school, I'm finding myself going back to their binders to get things I did with them so I can share them with the boys. I guess it pays to be a packrat!

So, how much do you remember from school? Do you have any old school work that your parents kept for you? And finally, do you keep your kid's stuff from school now? If so, where or how do you store it?