How do you decide which of your child's school papers to keep?

[CanBeGrumpy]

I'm cleaning my kids' rooms so Santa won't faint when he looks in there and I'm wondering how you guys decide what to keep from their school work. My basic rule is I keep anything that is their own original creation (drawing, paragraph, etc.). I throw out worksheets, etc, unless the kids have expressed their own ideas somewhere on the worksheet. I throw out their "Scholastic News" unless I think it will be interesting to look back on later (I saved the ones about the Bush/Kerry election and the Space Shuttle return to flight). So, am I missing anything? What do you keep? Thanks!

 

[Lisa L from MI]

I used to save just about everything but now just cute things..like you said...their own creation...like stories, drawings etc.

I still have my school work stashed away in boxes from K thru highschool!! And I graduated highschool in 1984!

 

[disykat]

I keep original stuff during the year and then at the end of the year I sort through and try to narrow it down to just a few things. I try to be realistic as to what we will actually enjoy having years from now. I figure one file box should easily hold all of their school memories. My dh and his mom were savers. She keeps trying to pawn stuff off on us. No one wants it and no one wants to take the time to go through it - but you don't dare toss it!

 

[Lynn CC]

DS's in college now and I have all his papers from Kindergarten through now. I tryto weed through them and throw out the "notes" kind of papers, but keep all other important ones, which is just about everything. It takes up a box in the attic. Someday soon I plan to go through them again.