How are the first few days or weeks of school going? Whether you have little ones or teens, chances are you’ve had your fill of paperwork right up front. Chances are that you already have the tools to keep it organized, but if it hasn’t moved off your kitchen counter or dining room table, let’s tackle that today by updating a school binder for parents.
In a previous post about creating a school binder, you learned about the few simple supplies you need and how to set up a few key tabs in your binder for parents.
Since you probably have a binder already set up from last year, cut your organizing chore in half by re-using what you already have set up. Just clean out the old and fill it with new paperwork. This will take you just a few minutes. My favorite must have tools for this are these write-on plastic pocket tab dividers.
They make it so easy to create the categories you’ll divide up papers by, so you can easily toss ones you no longer need, and keep important things easy to find by category. Here are mine.
This year, I was cleaning out my rising second grader’s binder and creating a new one for my kindergartener, but even she had a yellow folder of stuff from her preschool that had a few things I wanted to keep.
It took only a few minutes to toss the old information and locate the few items worth keeping:
- rosters with classmate contact information
- online passwords from in-school computer programs
- club information
- her stash of name labels
- a baggie to collect BoxTops
One item got passed from the older to the younger child: a paper clock to learn to tell time.
**You get the teacher’s pet award if you scan the class roster or important contact information into Evernote, so you’ll always have access, even if you aren’t at home to access your binder.
I added one thing to both binders: a list to collect their friend’s names. I sometimes can’t keep up with who is a BFF, who is just a friend, and who switched sides to the “not a friend” camp. This will help me.
Since school started, we’ve gotten enough paper to fill up these organized binders. Contact lists, bus information, lunch menus and other classroom information is already filed away in the pocket dividers. No searching for a 3-hole punch on my watch! This is what our kitchen counter looks like now.
My bill holder (the white organizer on the left) sits next to a binder for each kid, and the school directory (barely visible on the right). You could argue that you might be able to get by with just one binder, since the kids go to the same school, but I am happy to have just these two binders to help me keep things straight for now. Whichever you choose, I think you’ll agree that it’s better than a pile of papers on the counter.
A school binder is easy to keep organized each day. No more lost permission slips or missed events.
Do you already have a binder that you can repurpose in a few minutes to keep you organized this year?
