Picket Fence Post

Okay, I know, I know, I’ve been woefully negligent when it’s come to updating The Paper Project numbers.

The Paper Project, for those of you who may have forgotten, is my attempt to quantify the amount of paper that my three kiddos (a boy in third grade and boy-girl twin fifth graders) bring home during a school year.

Given that I oftentimes feel overwhelmed by the sheer number of requests, projects and paper that come home from school, sometimes without warning – The Youngest Boy just brought home a plastic jug which we’re supposed to fill with items so he can bring it back to school for his class to estimate the number of items inside — I figured that by putting a number on the paper blizzard I could at least place that overwhelming-ness into a context.

I just poured through the paper that was brought home during the second and fourth weeks of February — minus the winter vacation week and a snow day — plus the first week of March. Among the papers were: Four announcements for a fundraising event at my older kids’ school, a flyer telling us about a day when we’re supposed to be “unscheduled,” 35 math work sheets/word problems, 44 papers worksheets/assignments involving spelling/grammar/reading and a beautiful landscape art project my 8-year-old created. (It’s quite lovely.)

The total number of pieces of paper that came home during that time was: 147.

That brings the grand total of pieces of paper brought home this school year to: 1,407.