Back-to-school tips: Organizing photos, teacher gifts & art portfolios

Parents of school-age children know that back-to-school time rivals the holiday season as the most wonderful time of the year. And, kids’ advancing grade levels define the years of our lives just as much as new years and birthdays. So, parents—are you ready to celebrate the most momentous unofficial holiday and major milestone of the year?

Check out our back-to-school tips for organizing photos from the last school year, honoring the kids’ educational achievements, and creating thoughtful teacher gifts.

Did you know? Mixbook has a dedicated education department with support options for schools and classrooms.

Organize your school year photos

During those final, precious days of summer break, families are full of feelings about starting a new school year. Most of all, back-to-school time feels like a renewal. New grade. New teacher. New school supplies. A fresh new start.

Apply this same approach to your photo reel. Last year’s school-related pics now represent memories of past experiences, which are to be treasured—and organized! Here’s how:

1. Create a folder especially for photos from the last school year. Name it something like “Mason 5th Grade” or “2024-25 school pics.” This could be on your phone, computer, or in cloud storage—whatever makes sense for you.
2. Browse all your photos across all devices and storage systems, and drag or copy all the school year photos into the new folder. Don’t forget to go through your school’s parent-sharing app, social feeds, and parent-group text threads. Ask other family members and friends to share any great school-year pics they might have.
3. Look through the photos and delete any duplicates, blurry pics, or poor-quality shots.
4. I.D. your absolute favorite print-worthy photos. Save them in a special sub-folder or use your photo management system’s “favoriting” tools.

Organization tips:

• Photo management apps such as Apple Photos and Google Photos offer various handy tools for automating organization.
• The Mixbook app will not only organize your photos, it can automatically create project-ready albums as well.

Find more photo organization tips here: How to Organize Your Photos for an Annual Review Book

What to do with last year’s school pics

It’s great to have an organized folder full of school year photos, but that’s not the end goal here. The photos represent key memories and moments that were all a part of your child’s educational and social growth. They deserve to be showcased and shared.

Think about that photo of the whole class on stage singing a song they practiced for months, or your kid proudly receiving a certificate of achievement in front of the whole school. The fun of the fall festival. The gingerbread monstrosities they made! The smile at the end of a frustrating journey through long division. Photographs immortalize these many, fleeting memories, which could so easily be lost to time. So—do something tangible with the pics, such as one of these rewarding projects.

Kids’ art books

For preschoolers and elementary school kids, art projects are many, frequent, and often messy. Older children with a passion for art also turn out projects in prolific numbers. It can be tricky to store or display all but a few. An amazing solution is making a custom kids’ art book with Mixbook.

Scan or photograph your kid’s best works of art, then simply drag and drop the photos onto the pages of a photo book. There are even photo book themes designed especially for this kind of project, such as the Kids Art Book by Crayola, and more sophisticated themes for art portfolios.

Books of your child’s art make wonderful keepsakes as well as great gifts for grandparents. You might also fill a book with creations made by all the kids in an art class. This could be a thoughtful gift for an art teacher, or a helpful showpiece for the school’s art program.

Related: How to Incorporate Your Artwork into Photo Books

Custom cards

School-year photos can be great choices for all kinds of custom cards. Examples include:

• Thank you cards for teachers or support staff who played an important role in your child’s school year.
• Invitations to school-related events.
• Graduation announcements—you could pair a “first day of Kindergarten” pic with a grad portrait.
• A welcome card for a new kid in the class.
• Birthday party invitations for whole-class celebrations.

Teacher gifts

Whenever you need an idea for a teacher gift, custom photo products like photo books, calendars, and home decor prints are always an excellent choice. Consider these ideas:

• A classroom photo book, which follows a yearbook format but is dedicated to a single classroom. (Tip: It’s easy to collaborate with other parents directly through Mixbook.)
• A custom calendar with different fun photos for each month. Mixbook Studio™ lets you start a 12-month calendar with any month, so you can customize one for the academic year.
• A retirement celebration photo book for a teacher who is saying goodbye to the school.
• An acrylic block print featuring a favorite photo of the class or a school event. The teacher can display the block in the classroom.

Ready to send the kids back to school?

Parents—we hope you get to enjoy the bittersweet relief at the end of a long summer break and the start of a new school year.

While you’re organizing and getting creative with last year’s pics, your youngsters will be making a whole new set of memories, every day. Mixbook is here to help you turn them into one-of-a-kind mementos that you—and your kids—will treasure forever.