There is a particular lump in the throat that comes with the pre-school years before the school flood begins, a folder bursting at the seams, a name written in that careful early hand, a painting you have absolutely no idea what to do with. You cannot keep all of it, but binning it feels like binning a piece of the year itself. This page is about handling the years before school starts calmly, so the memories survive without the boxes taking over the loft.
VaultIt takes the agony out of the years before school starts. Scan the whole folder in minutes, add a voice note for the standout pieces, and keep everything in a private timeline sorted by year. You keep a small handful of originals and let the rest go, knowing the full record is safe.
Scan everything from the years before school starts before you decide what to keep physically. Once a digital copy exists, you can comfortably keep just five or six originals from the year instead of the full stack, and the box under the bed finally stops growing.
Pencil the term or month on the back of each piece from the years before school starts as you sort, because by next summer you genuinely will not remember which came first. With well over a hundred pieces a year, a rough date is what turns a pile into a story.
The early writing, the spelling lists, the wobbly first sentences from the years before school starts matter as much as the paintings. Save a few alongside the art and you capture how they were thinking that year, not just what they drew.
The giant junk-model, the certificate that has to go back, the display piece that stays at school, snap them all during the years before school starts. A quick photo of the unkeepable is worth far more than the regret of having nothing at all.
Do I really need to keep everything from the years before school starts?
No, and trying to is exactly what makes it overwhelming. The trick is to scan the lot so nothing is truly lost, then keep only a small handful of physical originals, the ones with real feeling attached. Quantity is the enemy of a collection you will actually revisit.
Where do I even start with the years before school starts?
Start with the most recent pile while the context is still fresh, then work backwards. Give yourself one evening, not a whole weekend, the aim is a rough sort, not perfection. With three to five pieces coming home each week it adds up fast, so the habit of dealing with it little and often beats one dreaded marathon.
What should I actually throw away?
Be honest about the repeats. Most of the years before school starts is practice, ten near-identical worksheets, colouring sheets they barely touched, photocopied templates with a name in the corner. Scan a couple as examples, then recycle the rest without guilt. Keep what shows their own hand and their own ideas: the off-script drawings, the heartfelt cards, the piece they were genuinely proud of. Once everything is scanned into VaultIt, throwing away the duplicates feels like tidying rather than losing.
“I sat down with everything from the years before school starts expecting it to take ten minutes and ended up crying over a drawing of our family with the dog drawn bigger than all of us. I am so glad I scanned that one.”
— Vik, mum of one