Classroom organization has always been one of my favorite parts of back to school time! I love going into my room during the last few weeks of summer to get organized and ready for the year! Today I want to share classroom organization systems for a clutter-free classroom even during a chaotic school year!

As teachers, we have A LOT of stuff! And then our students come in on the first day of school and bring even more stuff! This can easily lead to an overwhelming mess. Having systems in place is essential to a functional space that STAYS clean and organized (with very little effort from you! 😉)

Everyone’s system will be different. You don’t need to go out and buy tons of new storage containers. Instead, gather what you already have and make a plan. 

Once you have your systems in place, it will be SO much easier to stay organized. If you want more tips for classroom organization routines to keep your classroom clutter-free, check out this blog post: 5 Routines to Keep You Organized this School Year

Hopefully some of these tips and tricks will give you some ideas for clearing clutter and setting up an organization system that works for YOU!

Teacher Material Organization

This blog post will be a 2 part series! In this first section I will cover Teacher Material Organization. Part 2 will cover my systems for organizing student supplies and learning materials. 

You can read Part 2 here: Student Supply Classroom Organization

It is so important for me to know exactly where all of my teaching materials are! When I’m planning and prepping my lessons, I need easy access to papers, center materials, small group teaching tools and more. 

All of my materials have to have a home so that I don’t accumulate clutter throughout the day! 

Classroom Organization System 1: Monthly bins and binders

For anything seasonal, I only want to see it one time a year! There is no reason to have September papers cluttering up the classroom in January! If I don’t need it, I don’t want to see it!

I use two storage tools for seasonal materials. The first is binders. I have one binder for each month of the school year and I keep any paper that I need during that month in the binder. At the beginning of each month when I am doing my long term planning, I pull out the binder to figure out what I will need. Then I take the binder to the copy room and make the copies right away. I put the papers directly back into the binder so that I do not have to worry about filing later!

For anything that does not fit in the binder, I use large 15 quart sterilite bins.

In these bins I store my seasonal read alouds, centers, craft examples etc. that I will need for the month.

I keep these bins stacked in my largest storage cabinet. I only get out the month I need and keep it on the shelf behind my teacher table for easy access. 

When the month is over I pack the bin up and switch it out with the next month! 

You can find Bin and Binder Labels here for organizing your materials!

Classroom Organization System 2: Filing Cabinet sorted by subject and skill:

I love a good filing cabinet for easy access! It is a lot easier for me to throw papers back in a file folder rather than storing them in a binder. For that reason, I keep all of my skill-based worksheets and paper in my filing cabinet!

Here’s how I have mine organized 

• Top drawer: VIP Papers – Includes files such as student info, school handbooks, sub folder, etc. 

• Drawer 2: Math

• Drawer 3: Reading/ Word Study

• Drawer 4: Science/Social Studies

Within each drawer, I have all of my papers sorted by skill or unit. I found these rainbow file folders on Amazon but this is not necessary for functional organization! It just makes me happy whenever I open a drawer 😅

Labeling the folders was super important for me because it makes it so much easier to quickly find what I need! 

Want to grab Guided Math units for the whole year? Find them here!

Classroom Organization System 3: Units and Small Group Materials Sorted by Skill

Another classroom organization system I use are Sterilite Latch Bins. During my second year of teaching I discovered these latch bins and fell in love. I literally asked for them for Christmas and my birthday so I could build my collection 😂

These bins are the PERFECT size for storing units, centers, and small group materials. I love how they stack so I can fit a lot in one cabinet. I sort all of my center materials by skill or unit and pull out the one we are working on! They also make it easy to switch out my math centers each week! You can read more about how I manage my math centers here!

I have one bin for each math unit, reading unit, and phonics unit!

You can find these free labels here!

Classroom Organization System 4: Teacher Table Shelves:

For materials that I use daily, I have shelves behind my teacher table for easy access! I have a large bookshelf and a smaller shelf (which is actually a shoe organizer!)

On the big book shelf I keep my Small Group teaching materials. I have a bin for each of my reading small groups and each of my math small groups. I also have my teacher tool box with all of my most-used office materials. 

In my math small group bins, I keep any materials for our small groups as well as any papers we might need! I color code to match each of my math groups! Read more about our math small groups here! You can grab the folder labels for free here!

The shoe organizer is where I keep my weekly copies. After I make my copies, (I like to do this on Thursday!) I fill the organizer for the following week. I sort my copies by subject but you could also sort by day of the week if that works better for you! 

Classroom Organization System 5: Center Tubs

Each day, one of the math rotations my students visit is Math Center Tubs. I have 4 different tub activities each week that I store in these baskets. The baskets are from Big Lots and have held up so well over the years!

Each day, my students check our digital rotation slide to see which math tub they will visit that day. Then they grab the tub and find a spot in the classroom to work with their partner! You can find the Rotation Slides here!

Each Friday, I restock the baskets with new materials for the following week! You can read more about how I organize my math centers here!

You can also grab the math tub labels for FREE here!

Classroom Organization System 6: Read Aloud Books

Organizing my read aloud books was one of my biggest challenges when developing my clutter-free classroom systems! 

I just have soo many books and I could NEVER find what I needed! It is still definitely a work in progress, but here is what has worked for me so far:

• Separate student books from teacher books – I like to keep all of my teacher read alouds separate from my classroom library. I found that when I kept them all together, I could never find the books I needed for my daily read alouds! I’ll talk more about my student book organization in Part 2 of my post.

• Seasonal Book Display: Earlier in the post I talked about how I keep my seasonal read alouds in my monthly bins. Each month when I get my new bin out, I like to display all the seasonal read alouds on this shelf:

This was a Good Will find that I spray painted pink the summer before my first year teaching! Students know that when they have free time after finishing work or when we have our daily DEAR time, they can read the books on this shelf. When time is up, they return the books to the shelf rather than putting in their reading baskets. This way the books don’t get lost and I can pull from it for read alouds!

• For my non-seasonal read aloud books, I use these bins from Really Good Stuff. I have them sorted in several different ways that make sense for my brain but probably wouldn’t for others! I have some separated by subject like math mentor texts or writing mentor texts, and others separated by comprehension skills (main idea, character traits, etc.!) 

My classroom organization systems are constantly changing and evolving but they have helped me to save so much time over the years! Taking a little time in the beginning to develop and set up your systems is SO worth it in the long run! 

What is your favorite classroom organization system? Let me know in the comments! 

Check out these bin and binder labels to get your classroom organized!