Before tackling the clutter, you want to have a clear plan in mind for how you will organize your materials and spaces in your classroom.
~ Zeba from Episode 92 of The Kindergarten Cafe Podcast
Episode Summary
Welcome to the Classroom Setup Mini-Series! We’re kicking things off with one of the most important (and sometimes overwhelming) parts – classroom organization.
Whether you’re in a brand-new classroom or just trying to make your space work better this year, I’m sharing the tried-and-true tips that have helped me create systems that actually work for both teachers and students. We’ll talk about where to start, what to prioritize, how to use containers and labels to boost independence, and why it’s totally okay (and expected!) to tweak things as the year goes on.
In this episode I share how to:
- Organize by category and purpose (not just appearance)
- Avoid traffic jams at the supply station
- Use my favorite teacher hack: student numbers
- Keep things clutter-free and kid-friendly
- Build systems that you can grow into
Label Options:
- Nature Classroom Decorations Labels
- Chalkboard Classroom Labels
- Watercolor Classroom Supply Labels – Sets in Each Rainbow Color
Resources:
Related Episodes:
Keep Learning:
Connect with Zeba:
- Instagram – @kindergartencafe
- Facebook – @kindergartencafe
- Website – www.kindergartencafe.org
- Tik Tok – @kindergartencafe
Read the Transcript
[0:00] Hey, teacher friends, it’s Zeba from Kindergarten Cafe, and today we are launching into our mini-series on classroom setup. There’s a lot of parts to classroom setup. There’s the classroom layout and structure of the room and the furniture. There’s the decoration side, and there’s classroom organization. We’re starting our mini-series on classroom setup by focusing on classroom organization today.
[0:25] Music. You’re listening to the Kindergarten Cafe podcast, where kindergarten teachers come to learn classroom-tested tips and tricks and teaching ideas they can use in their classroom right away. I’m Zeba, creator and founder of Kindergarten Cafe, and I help kindergarten teachers with everything they need from arrival to dismissal in order to save time, work smarter, not harder, and support students with engaging and purposeful lessons. I’m here to cheer you on through your successes and breakthroughs and offer support and resources so you never have to feel stuck or alone. Ready to start saving time and reducing your stress all while using effective and purposeful lessons that students love? Let’s get started.
[1:20] Okay, so if you are in a new classroom or a fairly new to you classroom, you are going to have a lot of things that you don’t know what to do with, and a lot of things you don’t know what they are or where they go. So before tackling the clutter, you want to have a clear plan in mind for how you will organize your materials and spaces in your classroom. You’ll want to think about like where in your room kids will be doing the reading, because that’s where you’ll want to have your books. Where will they be doing their math activities or gathering materials for a math game, that’s where you’ll want to put your math materials. Where will you have them do crafts? That’s where you’ll want your art supplies. That kind of organization of the classroom setup is important to know before you start organizing your materials. Because otherwise, you’ll organize your materials in a way that doesn’t make sense for the layout of the room and how your kids will be moving in it. One tip that might help more like returning teachers once they know the curriculum, or you can reach out to someone on your team and ask them or you can just try it out for a year and then reevaluate as you get to know the curriculum. But you might consider organizing your materials based on how often you will use them.
[2:32] You’ll want to keep essential materials close by, whereas the things you really don’t use very often can be tucked behind other things or in a cabinet further away, that kind of thing. Now, obviously, if you’re new, you might not know that yet, and that’s okay. It’s okay to not know that. You’ll do your best, and you will reorganize throughout the year as you get to know the curriculum and the needs of your students.
[2:53] And keep in mind that you really, you can’t organize everything all at once, especially if you’re in a brand new classroom. Really focus on the high priority areas first, like student supplies, and then teacher curriculum materials. You can work on that throughout the year as you get to know the curriculum. I’ve changed classrooms three times, and the first year that you’re in there, it’s not going to be perfect by day one because you just don’t know yet. You don’t know what’s in the room or what you’re going to be using, and that’s okay. You’ll do your best. Like I said, you’ll prioritize the areas that are student-facing and that the students are using, and you’ll reorganize as you get to know the
[3:34] materials in the classroom throughout the year and even the next summer and the next year. Okay, so when you are organizing your supplies and your materials, having bins and baskets is really helpful because they are better able to contain all of the materials and they’re not like flowing out or falling off or falling down like it’s just better to have a clear space of where they belong and you’ll want to organize similar materials together so like I put the markers and the highlighters and the color pencils and the crayons all together in one area and I put scissors and glue stick near together because you’ll need them at the same time usually. I’ll put all my math tools together like dice and chips and counters, 10 frames, all of that stuff goes together because they’re in the same category, they’re in math. You always, always want to label everything.
[4:33] Containers get labels, drawers get labels. It really helps with organization, but it’s also a really good way to increase independence and your students and being responsible with their space because they will be able to find where things go. They will be able to find what they need. They won’t need to ask for your help. I mean, they will at first, but eventually they’ll remember, oh, yeah, I can go find what I need because I can look for the picture on the label. Always have pictures with your labels. If you are looking for labels, I have a lot of classroom labels, more than you’ll probably need in my store. And I have a couple of different colors and beams. So highly recommend checking that out. I’ll put the link in the show notes. But label, label everything. Things that are not used by students definitely consider storing in cabinets or a pie so that like they’re not in the eye side of the students the students can’t reach them the students can’t get into them and make a mess of what it is and not know what they are like anything that you don’t want them touching put away that’s my recommendation because if it’s out if they can see it they’ll get into it whether or not you tell them to or not they will get into it if it’s out there and if it’s at their child level. So that also means things that you do want them to be able to get independently and use, keep it child level, keep it eye level, make sure it has a label on it.
[5:55] And like I said, containers are your best friends. You can even save up this summer on Tupperware containers or mason jars, things like that for like smaller items you could use.
[6:08] It You don’t have to go to the container store and buy up all of their fancy containers. You can start with this kind of stuff and you can upgrade over the years. Dollar store or like the dollar section of Target often has good containers. Personally, I don’t think all the things have to have lids, although I do like having lids on a lot of things. But I have plenty of things that are just open containers and that’s OK, too. But it just helps that they’re in a contained space.
[6:33] Another thing you’ll want to consider for organizing is how you might organize student work. Will you have a file folder or a binder or a tray to organize things for yourself? I like to create portfolios for students. So like how do you want to save work for students over the year to make it easier to put in the binders at the end of the year to showcase their work? I use an assessment binder to keep track of their assessments where I put all of my assessments in numbered tabs. Again, going along with last week’s episodes where I talk about how I have student numbers, that also helps with that. So I have numbered tabs for the students. So when you’re just getting into the classroom that’s new, like I said, start by making sure you have materials in the area where you think you’ll want to have them. So reading materials with like books in the area where you want to have like your library or where you want students to be reading. Put your math materials together. Organize it by category of like materials.
[7:34] Definitely as much as you can declutter. But if you are in a new space, it’s hard to know what to get rid of. If you’re new to the grade level I don’t recommend really getting rid of a whole lot unless it’s clearly very old or damaged just because you don’t know yet what you’ll use or won’t use and like I said if you’re not sure about something or you’re not sure how often you’ll be using it or what it’s even for put it up high put it in a cabinet away from the kids but that way you have it in case you need it because there’s definitely been times where I didn’t follow that advice and And then it came time to doing something in the curriculum and my teammates were like, oh, yeah, you have this random looking thing. And I’m like, oh, I think I got rid of that. So that’s the other thing. The other tip, too, is that you can ask your teammates like, hey, do I need to save this for some reason? What is this? If it’s something really random. But having as clutter free as possible environment will help students. So whatever is student-facing, whatever is at their eye level.
[8:37] Try to be organized in containers with labels and clutter-free, so not too much of the stuff. You can always rotate out materials, too, like toys. You can rotate out and actually make kids more engaged with them if they haven’t seen them before or haven’t played with them in a while. So if you have cabinet space and things where you can put things away, like behind a door or a curtain or something or a pie, feel free to do that. So that way it’s not too much stuff on shelves.
[9:07] The kids can see like this spot on this shelf goes for this material and that’s it. Nothing’s stacked on top or anything like that. And the last thing to consider for organizing your supplies is really like how are students going to be accessing them. For example, I have, like I said, I’ve grouped my scissors and glue sticks together because they will be needed together.
[9:29] Now, the way I have my supplies is I have all my main supplies like that, scissors, glue, extra markers, and then my math supplies are on one big long shelf that has a lot of drawers. And all the materials are inside the drawer and the drawer is labeled. Because of where that is, if every single student rushed up to go get scissors at the same time, it would cause quite a traffic jam and would bump into the table around it and it just wouldn’t be good. So I have a classroom job called a supply manager, and I have a classroom job called a teacher’s assistant. I’ll have one student pass out the glue, one student pass out the scissors.
[10:07] Then as students are finishing up, they can put away their materials independently because they’re not all finishing up at the exact same time. So it’s not a mad rush to the supply station. So consider that, right? If I wanted it to be something where every student could get it at the same time, I might put it somewhere more open. So where I have my table bins or my folders for the tables is in this big open area in front of my desk near the rug before the tables. So that if I send everyone to go get their folders at the same time, which I don’t recommend, I recommend doing it in groups or having someone from each table getting all the materials and bringing it to the table, but that’s a different story. If I did have a lot of people going at once, there would be space for it. It wouldn’t cause a traffic jam. So keep that in mind for where you’re putting the supplies. And if you are new to the classroom and you’re new to the space, try it out. If it’s not working, you can change it. You can change the room around or you can move where the supplies are and you can just say hey every time I say to go get a pencil.
[11:11] There’s always a traffic jam and I notice people are pushing and that people are getting hurt so I decided to try to move the pencils here and see if that helps so let’s try it and see if we can do it get our pencils safely be honest with them and say why you’re moving it and it’s okay to change and be flexible so just remember put things in containers put them with other similar materials Label, label, label, label. Try to make it welcoming, but take it one area at a time. Don’t overwhelm yourself trying to organize everything in one go. Start small. Start with just the things that students need right away.
[11:46] And as you get to know your classroom and your space, you can organize areas more effectively over time. And also, like, for play areas, I don’t open them all up on day one. I open them up over time so that I can really teach how to use that play area. So if my dramatic play area or my stand table is not set up or organized on day one that’s okay because I won’t be opening it for them they won’t be playing there for a couple of days so you can take your time and do it slowly and like I said over the course of the year you’ll keep changing things editing them fixing it making it better and the next summer you can do even more tackle one area at a time so you’re not overwhelmed if you have questions as you’re going along you can reach out to me and I’m happy to help you anytime. You can also check out, if you are new to kindergarten, my PD by the Pool private podcast because I have lots of sections on setting up the classroom, building routines, what not to buy for your classroom. That’s a good one. So definitely check that out if you are new to kindergarten.
[12:55] Thanks so much for listening to the Kindergarten Cafe podcast. Be sure to check out the show notes for more information and resources, or just head straight to kindergartencafe.org for all the goodies. If you liked this episode, the best ways to show your support are to subscribe, leave a review, or send it to a friend. I’ll be back next week with even more kindergarten tips. See you then.