Organization in a Classroom: A Guide

Being organized not only makes working with students easier, but it can also help reduce stress. Creating organization in a classroom is a great way to start the year and set you and your students up for success. 

A messy classroom may make it harder for students to find the supplies or books they need. Some students may find it hard to concentrate or be productive in the midst of a mess or clutter. 

Setting up your space so it utilizes storage and the size of your classroom is key to making sure your students feel comfortable and like they can do their best every day. 

Read on for some of the best tips on how to organize your classroom and keep it that way throughout the year. 

Use Desks to Your Advantage

having storage right next to a table for students

The first thing you will want to figure out when it comes to classroom organization is how you want to set up your desks

Desks are a core piece of classroom furniture as they serve as a home for your students. Whether your students sit at the same desk all day or just part of the day, it's important they feel good about their areas.

The old-fashioned way of setting up long rows of desks may work for some classroom settings, but it may be better to set your desks up in groups. Desk groups can be set up in clumps of 2,3, 4, or 5 desks.

Creating desk groups gives you a chance to organize your students in a way that will be best for their learning. 

For instance, it may not be productive to sit students with their close friends at the same desk group. They might distract each other and find it hard to concentrate on work. 

Try and sit students together in a way that will be helpful for everyone at the desk group. If you know a student struggles in one or two areas, try sitting them with two other helpful students who can help or be encouraging. 

You can also use desk groups to separate loud students from one another. You will inevitably have some talkers in your class and pairing them with quieter students may help them stay on task.

Buy Bins and Organizers for Supplies

KI Ruckus Storage unit with totes

One great way to keep your class organized all year long is to make sure there is a place for everything.

Buying furniture for classrooms should always include buying organizers, bins, shelves, and any other storage you will need.

If your students will be using tools such as crayons, markers, rulers, scissors, and other craft supplies, there should be a proper place for all of these. You can use shelves to organize textbooks, leisure books, and other book materials. You can use bins to hold shared supplies like markers and scissors.

You can also use shelves or bins to organize finished schoolwork, graded papers, and papers by subject. 

Create Stations

 Classroom set up in zones by color

One of the best classroom organization ideas is to create spaces in your room for designated activities. 

One example is to have a station for students' belongings. You can make rucksack organizers or boxes for students to put all their things in at the start of the day. This way, no one will be tripping over rucksacks. 

You can also create areas like an art supply station and a homework station where your students always know they need to put their finished homework. 

You can even create a "quiet" station for students who are having trouble concentrating or need a short break. Add a few items here, like lined paper or colouring pages, for kids to use until they feel ready to try working again. 

You may want to create different stations on your walls. You can show off your student's work in one area and appoint another wall for the week's vocabulary words or maths formulas. 

Designing areas of the classroom for specific learning tools or outcomes will help you feel organized throughout the year. 

Colour Codes and Labels

One great way to ensure all supplies are always stored where they're supposed to be is to try colour coding and labelling. 

If you have a library of books, you can colour code each genre and shelf that corresponds with that genre. For example, you can put green sticker dots on all the fantasy and sci-fi books and also put some green dots on their shelves. 

 Colored Storage units can be used to color code where materials go

You can also create clear labels for other supplies so that students or visitors are never confused about where things belong. Make colourful labels for marker bins, bins that hold extra pencils, and other supplies. 

You can also colour-code schoolwork bins to make it easy for students to know where to turn their work in.

Have a coloured bin for work done in the classroom and another for finished homework. You can also create a coloured bin for extra work for faster students looking to fill time.

Once your students are used to associating specific colours with places and purposes, you will all feel a bit more organized. 

Keep Your Students Organized Too

 Workstations for children

You can't forget that keeping your classroom organized includes helping your students stay organized too! 

You can appoint jobs to students to help ensure the class is always clean and running well. You can make a classroom organizer that displays whose job is what, so no one is unsure. 

Assign one student to turn the lights on and off if you use projectors to display lessons in the class. You can also assign another student to collect homework to place in the homework bin or to pass out paperwork. 

Jobs like wiping the chalkboard or whiteboard, sweeping the class at the end of the day, and passing out desk wipes will keep things organized. 

Organization in a Classroom and More

Now you know some of the best ways to keep organization in a classroom. It's always a good idea to get organized at the beginning of the year, but it's never too late to start. 

At Simplova, we pride ourselves on providing school furniture for grades K-12 to stock your schools with everything you need. Shop our furniture options today to start organizing your classrooms.