Bins, Boxes, Buckets, and Bags…
Are you a pile of papers all over your desk person, or does every marker and pencil have its own “place” on your teaching table? ? Do you find yourself stacking a folder on top of a folder, or is every worksheet organized alphabetically? Whether you are Type A or not, a little bit of organization does help in the classroom. Here are some quick and easy organizing ideas for teachers to help keep you, your students, and all of the supplies you have organized. ?
Organizing Supplies
Use a shoe pocket hanger to store earbuds, glue sticks, scissors, dry erase markers or any other classroom supply.
Grab a coat rack hanger and some small metal buckets. You can store community supplies in the buckets and hang them from the coat rack.
Run to the Dollar Store and grab the 2 packs of lock-top snack containers. They are the perfect size for storing crayons. No more broken crayons or spilled crayon boxes all over the floor.
Craft kit organizers are great for storing plastic letters and numbers used in literacy and math centers.
Magnetic locker containers can be hung on your whiteboards to help store dry-erase markers, sight word cards, pointer wands, etc.
If you happen to be a little crafty, you can use old clean soup cans as supply holders at your student tables. Clean them out, peel the paper wrapping off of them, then hot glue them together and decorate with a little twine or ribbon wrapped around them.
Book Storage
Organize your read-aloud books in filing cabinets by month, theme, or alphabetically. This minimizes the clutter of book baskets and makes them easy to find.
Milk crates are super versatile! They can be used to store whiteboards, student interactive notebooks, read-aloud books, or as flexible seating.
Chair pockets for students to store their notebooks or workbooks in. This helps to keep the desk and table space clear of clutter and papers.
Teacher Item Storage
During the back-to-school sale at stores, grab a few of the plastic pencil boxes and store your stickers, stamps and stamp pads, unsharpened pencils, task cards, etc. They are easy to label and stack for storage.
A dish draining rack can serve as a daily folder holder. And as a bonus, you can store your fav flair pens or sharpies in the utensil cups.
Keep all of your important information on a key ring attached to your lanyard. Make small copies of your class list, daily schedule, dismissal list, and parent contact information. String them on a three-ring binder clip and attach them to your school keys. This is super helpful when out on the playground, during afterschool duty, and on field trips.
Center Material Organization
Use a photo box container to store all of your sets of task cards for the year.
Stackable file trays can store your weekly center activities, morning work, homework, daily worksheets, and printables, or anything else you want organized.
Old cereal boxes can be cut in half and decorated to use as student book boxes. It is a fun way to get your students involved in keeping your class organized.
? To keep your small groups organized here is an editable small group centers template freebie. This way, you can set a weekly schedule for your math and literacy small groups/centers. It will help to keep your students on track as well as you know what center they are at and the rotation schedule they have to follow.
Just remember that everyone has their own way of organizing things. Some are very meticulous, while others have clutter, but they know where everything is when they need it. ? Choose the organizational hacks that work best for you, and know that they will change over time.
If you have any organizing ideas for teachers, please share them in the comments below. ⬇️ We are always on the lookout for new and innovative ways to keep our classrooms less cluttered. LOL
Written by – Janessa Fletcher
At Education to the Core, we exist to help our teachers build a stronger classroom as they connect with our community to find trusted, state-of-the-art resources designed by teachers for teachers. We aspire to be the world’s leading & most trusted community for educational resources for teachers. We improve the lives of every teacher and learner with the most comprehensive, reliable, and inclusive educational resources.
If you enjoyed what we have to offer at ETTC, be sure to join our email list so that you won’t miss a beat.
