Cut school flyers into quarters for colorful scratch paper

Does your school send your child home with a stack of flyers and announcements every week? Rather than toss them into the recycling bin (as I've always done), I've taken to cutting them into quarters and stacking them by the phone. I'm always scrabbling around looking for scratch paper, and my kids often ask for drawing paper. Ta-da -- self serve, free, and colorful!

Rather than using scissors, I keep my stack nice and even by using this inexpensive Fiskars paper trimmer. I've gotten so much use out of this thing (cutting laser-printed photos, slicing kid art into strips for cards, gift tags and "ribbon," etc.), and you can buy replacement blades when it starts getting dull.

Any other ideas for recycling school flyers?

Related:
Turn office printouts into school scratch paper
How to store children's art projects? Talk amongst yourselves.

Comments

[Ticia]

We try to do the same thing, so new ideas really. They're also great for craft projects.

[Megan at Simple Kids]

We get an OUTSTANDING amount of paper home from school. I mean, it's just unreal. I have definitely just be re-using ours as coloring paper for my toddler. She thinks that anything that comes out of Big Sister's backpack must be for "big girls," so she is all too happy to use it for coloring.

Thanks for the link to the paper trimmer!

[Amy]

I put all discardable school flyers in my printer at home and print on the backs on them. I just have to remember to put in a blank sheet of paper if I am printing something "important," but for most things like grocery lists, stuff to fax, etc., this works very well.

[Jenni]

I was in LOVE with this hack until I remembered that most of my daughter's stuff comes hom with Spanish on one side and English on the other. Oh well!

[Parent Hacks Editor]

My dad is a retired engineer, so I grew up with cut up engineering printouts as scratch pads. When I was a kid, paper that was blank on BOTH sides seemed like a big deal, and I saved it for special projects.

[Sherry]

I do this. I also use it for coloring paper for my kids and to print stuff on that isn't necessary to have on nice blank paper. I have stacks of paper that I get from the school.

[Lori]

I put it in my printer too to use the backs.

Or I let my 2yo color on them.

[Leighann of Multi-Minding Mom]

My daughter just started kindergarten and I began drowning in papers.

If the flier is printed on one side, I stick it into the printer tray. Rarely do I print something that needs to be on pristine paper.