When I got my first job, I was so excited, but so overwhelmed. The classroom I received was from a teacher that had taught for many years. It was not organized and there was a lot of STUFF. Everywhere. I decided I did not have time to clean out before the year started. So, that first year, I tried to work around the clutter and it was hard.
The spring of my first year of teaching, I decided to start decluttering. There were only a couple months left of school and I wanted my classroom to be my own. When I finally decluttered, I felt so much better. I knew exactly what I had in my classroom. This made teaching so much easier.
While you are cleaning and organizing your classroom, also take some time to focus on simplifying your teaching. I wrote a post about that here. I also wrote a post on ways to organize papers during the teaching day here.
Here are a few tips to help you declutter, whether you are a first year teacher decluttering someone else’s mess or a veteran teacher wanting to declutter your own mess.
1. Start Small
Start with one cabinet or drawer. Don’t start at the biggest mess in your classroom. Sometimes, this can overwhelm you. Starting small will help you see improvement and encourage you to keep going. I started with one cabinet at a time. This way, I could easily finish decluttering in one day and move on to the next cabinet the next day.
2. Take Everything Out
Whether you start with a drawer or a cabinet, take EVERYTHING out. This is an easy way to see everything you have. Only put back what you absolutely need or want. If you are unsure of whether you should keep it or not, put it in a pile and go back to it at the end or in a couple days.
In my classroom, I had so many classroom books for students to read, that students couldn’t even find something they wanted to read. The bins were so full, students could barely look through it. I decided to take out EVERY single book I had in my classroom. This helped me easily see everything I had and I could put into piles what I wanted to keep and get rid of.
3. Clean
When everything is out of the drawer or cabinet, take some time to clean it when it is empty. Dust or wipe it down. This will help when you are putting things back in, you will know it is clean and ready to go.
4. Only Keep Something of Value
In my case, I had a ton of resources. But a lot of the resources were old and outdated. If it was something that was not going to be valuable to my teaching, I got rid of it. If I could not see myself using it, I got rid of it. Think about the year and what you taught, if it could add to your teaching, keep it. If you have not used the resource in the past year, you probably don’t need it.
5. What to do with stuff you don’t want
A lot of resources you have in your classroom that you don’t want are not always trash. Just because you don’t want it, doesn’t mean others won’t. I liked to put everything I wanted to get rid of in a box and put it in the teachers lounge or work area. This way, if another teacher could use it for themselves, they could take it. If I found anything in my classroom that would work for another grade, I would take the resource to that grade level teacher and see if they wanted it. Once I asked other teachers and put it in the lounge, if I still had stuff left over, I would offer it to the students. I offered them books to take home and they actually really liked it! Take all these actions before you throw something away! Please talk to your principal before you throw or give anything away, just to make sure it is okay.
6. After the purge, organize!
After you go through all your stuff and you are keeping everything you want, organize it! Being organized is the best way to be able to make the most of what you have and use it. I organize in my classroom cabinets by ways of subject area. All ELA in one cabinet, all math in another. This helps me know exactly where to look when I am teaching something specific. I also moved all my classroom manipulatives to one shelf so I knew where to look. I also put all classroom student books in one place. In my classroom library, I reorganized the books by genre to help my students easily find books to read.
7. Organizing
When I am organizing, I like to put similar things in a pile. I also use post it notes to put what category it should go in on the pile. This also helps to let you see if you have too many of one area. You can split up a huge pile into two smaller piles. This helps you put everything away in the most organized manner.
8. Bins and Tubs
When you are organizing, put things in a bin or tub if you can. This will help to keep it all in one place. Then, you can just pull out the bin when you need something from it and put it back exactly in the correct spot.
Teaching in a clean, decluttered, and organized classroom is the best feeling. You can easily find stuff you need and spend less time planning when you know where everything is. Remember to check out how to simplify your teaching here and how to stay organized during the day here.
Hopefully you can take this advice and declutter your own classroom! Good luck!
Thank you for Continually Learning with us!
Kyle and Sarah
