Digital Consolidation

One of the main things that has taken so long in cleaning out the school room is figuring out what to do with past school work, old curriculum, and things I am not using this semester but I think I'll use down the road.  Typically my solution to last year's school work, drawings, and papers is to put it all in a stack and shove it to the side.  Who wants to get rid of her kid's first book report?

Now that we are heading into our 6th year home schooling though, I'm running out of space for saving things.  Thinking about packing up our family and heading off to Africa has also caused me to evaluate what I'm keeping and going to have to go through again later!  I just sent a huge stack of papers, notebooks, and projects to the recycling bin, which felt fabulous!  Before I said farewell though, I took an idea from my mom about hanging onto the memories without the mess.  She once told me that when she gets letters or drawings from her grandchildren, she takes photos of the special things.  She might keep the letter out on her desk for a while, but when it is time to throw it away she is not losing it forever.

So each one of my kids has a file folder on the computer for artwork.  I guess I might separate it into having a schoolwork folder and artwork folder for each kid, but for now it's all in one.  So now that I have these all handy, of course I have to share them!

 Henry's health poster draft, 2nd grade

The following three pictures are from Henry's first grade history notebook (2011-2012).  

"Il Duomo" - Architect Filippo Brunelleschi (Pippo)

 

"Shah Jahan built the Taj Mahal.  He built the Taj Mahal for a tomb for his wife."

The last three pictures are Eika's.

 "Babur's Mosque"

"Taj Mahal"