Are you tired of spending hours sorting through your classroom only to end up right back where you started a few weeks later? Then you need to check out these classroom organization strategies to help you banish the clutter for good!
Keeping your classroom organized is essential for making each day run more smoothly. There’s nothing worse than wasting time looking for resources or having to re-print things you can’t find! And if you’re anything like me, every now and then you have a big tidy up of your room…only for is to get cluttered again a few weeks later!
If this sounds familiar, or you are just looking for some new classroom organization strategies, then keep reading!
This post is all about classroom organization strategies.
The Best Classroom Organization Strategies:
Why Having An Organized Classroom Is Important:
As a teacher myself, I know just how buys our days can be. From planning lessons, to marking papers, parent meetings and our never ending to do list, there never seems to be enough hours in the day to get it all done! And trying to keep your classroom organized on top of all of that can seem impossible.
When I was training to teach, my mentor teacher had a super disorganised classroom. There were papers everywhere and nowhere had a home. And that was simply because they did not have the time to sort through it or have the classroom organization strategies in place to keep on top of it.
But having an organized classroom is super important and something it is definitely worth spending some of your precious time getting sorted. Developing good classroom organization strategies will be super helpful for you. Spending ages searching for that important paperwork that you can’t remember where you set down will be a thing of the past! We all know how precious our time is so don’t waste it looking for things!
An organized classroom also makes for a calmer and more purposeful learning environment. Having clutter everywhere can be really distracting for some children. Plus it’s hard to teach our students to respect their belongings when yours are scattered all over the classroom!
When everything has a home in your classroom, you can also have your students take on more responsibility for keeping the classroom tidy. When they know where to grab resources from or where to put things away, they can take more of an active role in classroom organisation.
[Related Post: 26 Genius Classroom Organization Hacks Every Teacher Should Know!]
Set Yourself Up For Success:
The way you set up your classroom is a really important part of classroom organization. Take some time to think about the best layout of your room. Where are students going to hang their belongings? What is the best way to store their resources so that they can easily grab them? Where is your teacher desk going to go so that you have easy access to the resources you will need?
If you are looking for some more help with setting up your classroom, check out this post all about the essentials steps to completing your classroom setup.
[Related Post: 9 Essential Steps To Complete Your Elementary Classroom Setup]
Classroom Organization Strategies To Give Everything A Home
If you are wanting to start your classroom organization plan from scratch, then check out these ideas to get you started.
1. Organizing student resources
Make sure you have resources and materials for your students clearly organized somewhere that is accessible for them to grab what they need. This way, students can be more independent in getting their own resources and also in retuning them and keeping things tidy.
Use drawers, caddies or tubs to organize stationery, art supplies, paper and any other resources you need in your classroom. The key to a great classroom organization system is to make sure everything is labelled. This way there can be no excuses if things go in the wrong tub!
2. Organizing your teacher desk
It’s also super important that your teacher desk is organized so that you can find what you need. You could add a teacher toolbox to organize your stationery or a rolling cart if you don’t have a large desk space. Make sure you have a paper recycling bin near your desk so those papers don’t build up, as well as a good filing system.
[Related Post: The Cutest Teacher Desk Organization Essentials That Every Teacher Needs!]
3. Organizing student papers and homework
We don’t want piles of papers cluttering up our teacher desks any longer! They look messy, quickly get muddled and don’t belong in our beautifully organized classrooms 😉 You could give each child a folder or tray to turn in their assignments.
I have found going paper free as much as possible when it comes to homework super helpful for helping get rid of clutter from my classroom.
Classroom Organization Strategies To Keep On Top Of The Clutter
Okay, so now you’ve got your classroom looking super organized, how do you keep it looking this way? You don’t want all your hard work to be undone in a few weeks time!
1. Set aside time each week to declutter
Block out some time in your calendar each week to give your classroom a quick once over. I find a Friday afternoon really great for this because I can get rid of any rubbish for the week and so that we have a nice clean classroom for Monday. I also actually get my students to do tidy their areas just before they leave on a Friday too. Sort out any papers on your desk, sharpen pencils and organize stationery and make sure everything is where it should be.
At the end of each term, have a more thorough declutter of your classroom. Don’t let things pile up all year long and leave yourself with a huge job in the summer. Little and often is definitely best when it comes to organizing.
2. Get your students involved
Getting your students involved in keeping the classroom organized is a game changer! It is their classroom too so they need to be helping to keep it tidy! And not only does it help you out, but it also teaches them important lessons in responsibility and respecting their possessions.
Set up a classroom jobs system in your classroom where each student is given a dedicated role. Make sure every student knows that their responsibility is and how they need to go about completing it. Make sure you also give students the time they need each day to complete their jobs.
You’ll be surprised how much your students love being given the responsibility and how much pride they take in their work!
3. Reflect and get feedback
No classroom organization system is ever perfect so make sure you ask your students and other colleagues for feedback about how you can improve. Perhaps a relief teacher would find a substitute binder useful, or your students might have a really great suggestion about how to better store their resources.
