As many of you know, Miss 5 just started Pre-K! I told her she wasn’t allowed to go. She told me “how am I going to be a baby doctor mama if you don’t let me go to school?” Good point little girl, good point. Regardless, I still dreaded being away from my baby for even one second, much less 2 1/2 hours every day. But she loves it! And I love that for her. She comes home singing the most adorable songs and sharing funny stories about the playground and her classmates. They have each been assigned a number which corresponds with a number on a rug. They sit on their number and line up by their numbers. My baby is such a numbers girl that when she talks about her classmates at home, she often refers to them by their number, “two was running a round like a monster today. Three had to go to the safe place again….. ” . It’s hilarious to listen to.
The first week of school their teacher read How Full is Your Bucket? by Tom Rath and Mary Reckmeyer. The book teaches children the metaphor of an empty and full bucket and how each of us has an invisible bucket. When our bucket is full (from kind words or actions from others), we feel great. When it’s empty (from unkind words or actions), we feel awful. After reading the book, her class was encouraged to fill each other’s buckets every day. Miss 5 really gets into it! Everyday she reports to us who filled who’s bucket and who was a bucket dipper. We encourage good deeds and actions all week. Mama, daddy, and baby sister are getting in on the bucket filling too! It’s such a great life lesson, one we are happy she is learning so early in her schooling.
On Thursdays, my bucket is filled to the brim as Miss 5 brings home her Thursday Folder. It is filled with special communications from the teacher and all the adorable papers and artwork they have done for the week. I love Thursdays! They are like mini Christmas mornings just for mama.
In anticipation of all the papers and special things she would be bringing home I’ve been trying to figure out school memorabilia storage. I’m sentimental, I’m a saver, and I’m an organizer. How could I bring all of this together? This was causing me serious stress because I knew I was going to want to keep it ALL! Like, EVERY. SINGLE. THING. But where????
Well, my very organized friend found the solution! The GREATEST solution! Since her daughter is a year older, she has already been through the storage struggle. She came up with an absolutely AMAZING idea! She bought some clear 12 x12 scrapbook paper storage boxes from Michael’s, one box per year of school. That’s 13 boxes (per child) mamas! They usually run about $9.99, but if you can catch them on a sale, you might be able to get them for as low as $2.99. I bought 7 boxes (that was all they had left) the last time they were on sale. I plan on buying the rest very soon because I am afraid they might discontinue them.
These boxes are perfect for all your school keepsakes! They have a handle for easy carrying and seal tight for safe keeping. They also stack, which makes it so easy to put them all on in one spot. We have ours stacked on the highest shelf in Miss 5’s closet. I love that over the years, they will be easily accessible for us to pull down and look through. When we are done, we just shut the lid and put it back in its tidy stack with the others.
We purchased the “clear” boxes, but they also come in “clear” pink. Neither box is completely see through. The clear is more of a cloudy clear.
I love that the boxes are deep enough that they will be able to hold lots of papers and even some special projects.
After I bought the boxes, I got right to work coming up with something to attach to the front inside and back inside of the box. I wanted something to attach First Day and Last Day of School pictures to, as well as the official school picture. Then, I decided to combine my favorite parts from all those adorable Back to School questionnaires that are out there. Of course, with the boxes being 12×12 a standard 8.5 x 11 piece of paper was too small. So, I just cut and pasted it all together and glued it to a 12 x12 piece of school themed scrapbook paper. I then slipped each 12x 12 piece of finished scrapbook page into a 12×12 clear scrapbook protector page. If you look closely below, the seam is just below the “First Day” and “Last Day” banners. The protector page makes it easy to tape your finished paper inside the box. It would also be nice if you someday want to remove all of fronts and backs of your boxes and put them in a 12 x12 scrapbook.
This is my questionnaire for the back of the box. I will attach a 5 x7 of Miss 5’s official school picture to to the blue frame on the right side of the page.
Here is the finished project! We keep our box in a special place and on Thursdays we add our newest keepsakes to it. If you do a school memorabilia box, we would love to see and hear about your ideas. Please share them in the comments.
