AIBU to have a bonfire with the kids school books?!

[Namechangenobody]

We have so many books containing school work and my children are still only in primary.

I’m too lazy to scan / photobook so I’ve decided to go through and cut out pages with the ‘good stuff’. I just don’t know what I should store it in after as the files / boxes I have are too small to fit the pages (some are bigger than a4).

Links or pics of storage suggestions if you have them would be amazing.

Other ideas also welcomed

Instagram / Pinterest didn’t help much

Ours went in the recycling bin but then I'm not sentimental and live in a small house!

I kep her reception ones for embarrassment purposes but the rest were recycled.

I bought a few A3 workbooks/sketchbooks from The Works or The Range or other shops that do what Wilko and Woolworths used to.

Each one labelled for a child and the start date of the book -
Daisy, Reception - ...
Theo, Year 4 - ...

Tape, staple, glue, whatever, any pieces of work, drawings, ticket stubs or anything else that is a reminder. Then bin all the rest.

You can also photograph any sculptures (mine were forever bringing gigantic creations from boxes and kitchen roll tubes home) or Lego/Duplo creations they are proud of and bin this junk and have a memory to treasure while keeping clutter to a minimum.

https://www.therange.co.uk/arts-and-crafts/art-supplies/sketchbooks-and-pads/sketching-pads/art-studio-sketchbook-a3/

I bought two large storage boxes & put the best bits in there, the rest gets recycled.
I got them from TK Maxx & they're about A3 size.

Why do you feel you need to keep them? I don't have anything kept from my schoolwork and honestly never felt like I missed out on it as adult. Unless your kids feel particularly precious about them books, I would just recycle them at the end of each academic year.

I've kept the funny ones, pictures and story writing, but none of the basic ones. Don't burn them, that's antisocial. Put them in the recycling.

Yep exactly this.

My parents kept some of the stuff from my younger school days but our school kept anything of significance or work we especially liked throughout the years.

In our last year of primary we were presented with a folder with all these pieces of work within and certificates etc. This meant there was no real burden on parents to keep all our books etc.

Now I'm an adult I've still got that wee folder (including our creative writing book from one of my classes - hysterical) and apart from some of my "first drawings" etc everything else has been binned/recycled

I have kept 1 book from every year,my DD is Yr 6 now so I went through all her books and chose the ones with the best bits in and photos if activities done at school etc,the rest she very reluctantly agreed with me to recycle!.I don't know why schools send the books home nowadays tbh because years ago when my eldest DD25 and my late son were little they never sent the whole years worth of books home,just bits of their best work throughout the year.

I'm planning to keep mine, and eventually scan/photgraoh them, but don't have the time now. I'm too sentimental to throw them out though. I have a large box of my old school books and my parents kept the main books for 4 kids, we were in a 3 bed flat so not a lot of space. But I'm glad they did.

My DCs school never sends books home; have very little evidence they ever do any work at school 😆

YABU to have a bonfire - YAnbu to recycle them.

Thanks everyone for replying. I definitely think i will keep the reception ones and only the best of the rest.

@ClarkGablesMoustache Thankyou! For some reason I hadn’t thought of a scrap book! My boys might even be up for helping with that (or getting glue everywhere) 😀

To those asking why, it’s silly but when my parents died it was one of the few bits of clearly their house which I ‘enjoyed’. It was nice to go through the old school books that they had kept, it took me back to my childhood. Since then my children have liked seeing / laughing at the drawings and projects I did at a similar age.

I don’t see the point of keeping everything / my children may not care / I don’t want it to take up tons of room so one small box each, similar to the ones @APurpleSquirrel suggested would be perfect.

I keep a couple of bits per year and recycle the rest. Surely no one can keep it all ?!

The problem for me is.

The school are always taking pics of the kid doing different activities and stick it on each page.

So pages and pages of my kid lewrning different stuff. Much harder to throw away.

Marissa has a good video on this (she doesn't get rid of everything). Interesting to see how her 2 boys participate. Good training :)

Ha ha ha ha ha. You're such a new parent. You stick stuff on the fridge, which you replace with the next stuff they're proud of. You bin pretty much everything (with never telling them) - They only really care about their recent achievements and getting praise. Always give loads of praise. You keep the odd school book you think is good/ excellent. No child ever, has ever asked for a complete record of their school books. School is a learning/ developmental process. Only stick with the best of the highlights. They don't want a record of all the mediocre/ bad day stuff they produced. They will continue to create brilliant stuff with every passing year.