Have you started packing up your classroom for summer yet? Have you run into any items that you’re debating whether or not to shove into a cabinet for another year? As you’re packing, are you dreading unpacking…because you have so. much. stuff to dig through every fall?

If the clutter in your classroom makes your teaching life even a tiny bit more difficult, I can help! Check out my tips for maintaining a clutter-free classroom all year long! (PS: It starts now, while you’re packing for next year!)

Why go clutter-free?

I think on the surface, it’s very appealing to have a neat and tidy classroom. But the chore of keeping your classroom neat and clean is a lot less appealing. Because let me be real with you: it’s work. No one accidentaly stumbles into a tidy room. Teachers who maintain organized, streamlined rooms make choices to keep their classrooms that way every single day. But, the benefits far outweigh the work that you must put in to keeping a room neat. First, having less piles of clutter means knowing where everything is at all times. If you know where everything is, you save so much time while you’re planning, prepping, and teaching. You know where that read aloud is. You know exactly where those watercolors are. Everything has a place, and it’s easy to identify.

Second, a clutter-free classroom maximizes learning. When everything has a place, students can find what they need. When materials aren’t buried deep in cabinets, forgotten about forever, students always have access to a variety of resources. You move through lessons more smoothly and transition from whole group to small group with ease when everything is where it should be. An organized room is one of the keys to preventing burnout! So let’s talk about exactly how to achieve this.

Ask yourself: When will I use this?

As you’re packing up your room this year, items you choose to keep in your room should be an ‘easy yes’. What I mean by this is, you pick up the item, and you know exactly when you will use that material. So, you know you need to keep it. This may be extra pencils or glue sticks (easy yes), or a boxed kit of versatiles that you always use for centers (another easy yes).

But what about those items that give you pause? You pick up that half-gallon bag of sand that you didn’t use this year, because they changed your standards and you didn’t do “that experiment”…but you may do it again one day. Do you keep it? Maybe. From here, ask yourself another question.

Is this item easy and affordable to obtain if I decide that I need it again?

For some of you, this will be painful. The thought of getting rid of something only to maybe repurchase it again one day is totally counterintuitive for some people! I get it. In fact, my first year as a teacher, I moved into a classroom where the teacher before me had blessed me with so many almost empty bags of gravel, sand, salt, soil, etc. that I genuinely did not know what to do with it all. Not a single bag had enough to use for any single science lesson. I was going to have to buy more, anyways. That last little bit of soil left in the bag was not really doing me a ton of good. But the teacher before me though it was valuable to keep it. So, she filled two full cabinets with almost-empty bags.

If an item is easy to repurchase, or what you have left of something really isn’t enough to justify saving, try not to feel guilty for letting it go. Find responsible ways to dispose of things, if possible. And, know that you can always use school funds, or possibly ask a parent volunteer to buy you more if you need it.

If the answer to this second question is “this is not easy to buy again”, then maybe keep it. Or, find a teacher who really needs that resource right now. Another personal example comes from my last year in the classroom. I was cleaning out the cubby room, and I found a case of nice, glass thermometers. There was a full class set! I wracked my brain for a few days trying to think of a way to work these thermometers into a unit to justify keeping them. But, at the end of the day, I really needed the shelf that they were on for other things. And we didn’t teach weather or anything even close in my grade. I emailed the staff to see who could make use of them…and first grade needed thermometers! The teacher who took the case from me said she’d be happy to give them back if I ever found that I needed them. They were still in the building, just not in my care!

Give Everything a Place

As you’re packing things up, place things that go inside cabinets and drawers exactly where you want to keep them next year. If you want to keep your crayons sorted by color in a drawer next year…go ahead and do that now. Pack everything else in boxes grouped by area so you know its place when next year rolls around. So, do you have a supply cart for small group time? Pack all of those items in the same box. Label it ‘small group cart’. Assign everything in your room an exact place. This will prevent you from gathering unneeded items next year. If it doesn’t have a place in your room, it’s far easier to let go of.

Get Your Students Involved

In my End of Year jobs, I have a system for students to clean, organize, and sort areas of the classroom as you are doing the more complicated work of packing up. Check those jobs out HERE!

Listen to the Podcast

Check out the full episode on this topic on The Simple Classroom Podcast! Be sure to subscribe to the show to hear every future episode!

WANT TO TRY A FREEBIE?

Sign up below to get a FREE set of classroom checklists for the end of the year! As your students are completing clean-up tasks for you, you can be working on those teacher-only tasks. You won’t have to worry about doing simple jobs like sorting through dried out Expo markers…but you will be cleaning out those cabinets and deciding what you no longer need. Your room will be cleaner than it’s ever been!

Grab the freebie below!

How to Clear the Clutter in Your Classroom (for good!)