Sorting/Scanning all that school stuff…

Sorting

Well, grab that stack of school stuff for your child and start sorting. Here are some of the things I gathered:

• School Photo: I use this for my first main page. I probably do the most “elaborate” layout of it and add years and grade.
• Class Photo: I like labeling all the children in the photo. With my son’s latest year, I didn’t have a class list so I just asked my son the first names of each person. I remember looking back at my class photos and wanting to remember the names and I can’t.
• First Day of School: Either your photo of our child on the first day of school or usually teachers have them write something on their first day.
• Artwork: If it’s too big, take a photo of it. That is much quicker than scanning it in.
• Writing Samples: If its a young student, its probably the way they write their name. If the child is older, its the stories/letters/reports they have written for assignments. I had huge amount of cursive practicing and I threw it all. His written assignments show his cursive writing off and is much more interesting than the practice sheets.
• Math Samples: I took out a few of his math worksheets spread throughout the year.
• Tests: Spelling or other. Not all of them but a handful. It shows how well they are doing so much better than a grade on a report card. Kids love looking back and going “I didn’t know how to do THAT or SPELL that?”
• Science: Science projects (a photo if large) or interesting science stuff they did.
• Extracurricular stuff: My son was in a talent development class and I saved the reports and projects he had to do for that class.
• Class Trips: Photos, brochures, or anything related to the class trips
• Gym/Track & Field Day: Our children have a special Track & Field day where I saved the certificate and added photos of it.
• State/National Test Scores: I had 2 of these for the fall & spring. I saved the one from spring and threw the fall one since the spring one had the fall score on it too. I also saved the sheet explaining the test scores and took excerpts from it and added to the page.
• Awards & Certificates: Any awards or certificates they recieve.
• Fun/Cute/Memorable stuff: My son had notebook that he wrote in is his spare time. I found a lot of fun stuff in there to save. It reflects a lot of what he was interested in during that time period.
• Teachers comments/thank you cards/notes: I kept the conference sheets where the teacher had made comments by my son. The thank you card he received at the end of the year from her.
• Grades/Report Card

Did I miss something? If I did, please comment…

Hopefully that has reduced your stack of school stuff immensely. Throw it out and don’t feel bad. You have the most important stuff in your save pile.

Scanning

The next step is very uninteresting. I scanned everything in. I did this while doing other things so it wasn’t quite so tedious. Just some notes on scanning.

• Scan anything with color (like awards) with photo setting.
• Scan the writing, worksheets and other black & white material with the text/illustration setting.
• Make sure you are scanning in a good quality to print.
• Take photos of things too large to scan. I put a white sheet behind the artwork and this sheet can be easily erased with image editing. That is much easier than scanning 2 halves and trying to “stick” it together in an image editor. Trust me on this.
• As you scan, name things appopriately or do it afterward. It makes it easier to start with the next step.

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