Madi's not even in "real" school yet and I already feel overwhelmed with all her projects everywhere. The piles seem to be never ending. She's always wanting to draw, color, or write something and my sentimental side has an extremely hard time throwing away such masterpieces!
What do parents do when they've got 3 or 4 kids bringing home paperwork, projects, reports, 100%'s and A+ work all the time?!? I keep telling Spencer how I've got to find a really good system to keep things very, VERY organized or I will seriously loose my mind.
For now, I have an "Art Project Wall" to hang some of Madi's monthly, holiday crafts. It was an easy fix for a bare wall. Her bedroom door is also covered. But once it's time to start removing some of the projects, what do I do with them? Throw it all away?? Keep only my very favorites? Start a school file for Madi that one day she can pack up and store in her own home? That was my thought, but even just one favorite project a month would add up to a pretty huge file!
That's a marshmallow igloo (for "I" week) sitting on top of her kitchen. Loved that idea Krista! Haven't brought myself to throw it away yet.
Most recently Madi's been starting to write a ton of words. The other afternoon I was super tired and really just wanted to take a nap, but Madi wouldn't leave me alone. So, being the good mother I am, I gave her a task to keep her occupied while I snoozed. :) I gave her a notebook and told her to write as many words as she could and when I woke up I would circle each correct word and reward each circle with a conversation heart. Madi was all over this assignment. She did pretty good too!
I made her use each word in a sentence to make sure she knew the words and their meaning (BAK is circled because she told me it was "back" and used it correctly in a sentence). After this assignment, Madi's been writing more and more. It's super exciting for me to see her sounding out words and not needing help with labeling her family portraits. But after days of collecting all these papers, I didn't know what to do with them. I decided if I took some pictures of my favorites I wouldn't have such a hard time getting rid of them. So that's what I did this weekend-took some snapshots and then tossed it all. Made me sad, but now I've got it on here and this will be with me forever!
Madi likes to do lots of family portraits, usually with the sun and a flower.
Love how we're all holding hands here.
And I'm loving my hair in this one! :)
Madi also likes writing letters. She obviously got a little bit of help with the spelling on this one.
9 comments:
I love Madi's pictures and writing. You know, she is going to be bored silly in kindergarten, when they practice writing their letters! Each of my kids have a file or file box for the older ones with special things they have made. I throw a lot away! I kind of use the rule that if they just glued some things on something, and it really doesn't have their "signature" then I don't keep it! Pictures of their work is great, but a few papers with their precious writing and drawings are worth keeping. My kids love to see something that I made, or wrote way back when...like "50 years ago," or something like that!
Oops, just realized that I am signed in under Brittany! This is Lindsay :)
P.S. why were you tired and napping????
Haha Linds! I take a 10-15 minute nap almost every day. Being a mom is a tough job you know! :) Thanks for the advice on what you keep!
Yeah, Anie, just like your mama. I use to power nap for 10 to 15 minutes and would be good as new. Way to go girl.
And Amen to Lindsay's ideas. Keep a few and take a picture of the rest. We started that with Karlee in the fourth grade and her big mission project. She even had me send her the picture and she used it for an assignment in one of her elementary ed classes.
Counting down and days until you get here:) xoxoxMOM
you can also just scan them into the computer and she can have her own "documents" folder with all her precious work!
what a smartie pants!!!
I see "LOG"! Why didn't she get credit for LOG? That's a word! I am SO with you but I'm not even good enough to hang them up on a wall... Mostly I just made a pile. I like your idea of taking pictures and then tossing them. I have a hard time parting with the "art" now that it is more meaningful too. I had no trouble throwing away the scribbles!
I got a great idea from an Enrichment night once--keep the things that you REALLY want to keep, like a project they worked hard on or something that really shows their abilities at that point. Then make two manila envelopes, write each grandma's address on one, then stuff them and send them off when they're full! I LOVE it... because then the boys aren't sad that I'm throwing away their work--I've done that before and they've seen it in the trash and cried--instead, they're sending it to Grandma to show her how smart they are getting! I don't put junk in them--now I do things like spelling tests, 100% mad math minutes, and some of the million art projects they come home with every week. There's still plenty of stuff I throw out, I just do it when they're at school :o)
Good luck!!! And yes, we loved seeing you guys too the other night, wish we could have chatted more. Jeremy's gone now, so give me a call and we'll hang out :o) I get lonely!!!
My mom would put anything that would fit in a binder and everything else got trashed, or she took a picture of it.
I can't believe how many words Madi can write! That's crazy! I'm so excited that you guys are coming. I'm going to Utah that next week, so its a perfect week for you to be here. We will have to do lots of play dates!
What a smart little girl you have on your hands! That is really amazing. I keep a "baby box" of things that are worth keeping. They have to be really good artwork or writing. I always keep report cards, but never homework unless it really rocks and they "created" it themselves. I've gotten really good at throwing things away. I love the grandma envelope. then grandma can feel guilty about throwing away:)
Anie I have a box of papers downstairs, for things to keep. I then sort through it with the girls at the end of the school year and we each keep a few of our favorites, tossing the rest.
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