9 Tips for a Clean Classroom

Are you finally enjoying sunshine days and clear blue skies?  I know I am!  Living in the Midwest is great, but by the middle of March, I am desperate for some sunny weather.  I’m so glad that June has arrived, and summer is right around the corner! I am breaking out my cheerful lemon decor at home and doing allllll the cleaning.  As the year wraps up is also time to organize for a clean classroom because one of my great passions in life is organizing!  Nerd alert!  

Now, I know what you might be thinking…I do not have time to reorganize my entire classroom!  I promise you do have time if you just break it down into small, manageable parts that usually only take about ten minutes per day.  (This year, I realize we may have a much shorter amount of time to clean up our room, due to quarantine.  You may also have to do the tasks yourself, rather than having students help.)

The bonus is that if you stay organized it will SAVE you time in the long run!  No more digging through piles and piles of stuff to find what you need.  So here are 9 tips to clean your classroom to freshen it up and reorganize for next year!

Tip 1 Look up!

The first thing to take note of when getting into spring cleaning mode is taking a minute to look over the whole room.  Is there anything needing repair?  Look up! Are there any burned out light bulbs?  Send a quick email to your custodian addressing any of these concerns.

I have a bucket in my room for missing pieces.  No matter how well I teach clean-up procedures parts and pieces often fail to get put away.  Inevitably, students want to bring you those pieces at the MOST inconvenient moments.

So, I started a bucket to collect those items.  My students are no longer allowed to bring those items to me.  They quietly place the item in the bucket!  Yahoo for fewer interruptions!  Whenever I have the chance and always during spring cleaning, I empty the bucket and return the pieces to their proper location.

Tip 2  Organize those cabinets (one at a time)

Normally,  I start cleaning out one cabinet each day.  They start out so neatly organized with all the games and materials stacked in perfect piles, but by this time of the year,  that stuff has been shoved back in as quickly as possible and no longer is neat and tidy.  

The best way to organize a cabinet is by taking everything out.  Take a look at each item to see if it needs repair or has any missing pieces.  One thing I like to do is put some clear packing tape on any boxes that are broken.  I also evaluate whether or not I truly need each item.  Think Marie Kondo here!  If you haven’t been acquainted, you can find her book here.

Hint-If you haven’t used it in over a year, you definitely do not need to hang on to it! 

You might worry about being wasteful by getting rid of something.  However, you don’t have to put things in the trash!  Share it with a colleague, donate it to charity or have a giveaway day for your students.  My students get very excited about a freebie!

What about the materials inside the cabinets?  The best way to clean classroom manipulatives is to take them home and give them a soak in a sinkful of hot soapy water.  Rinse them and lay them out to dry on a towel.  I also like to run my classroom scissors through the dishwasher at least once a year.  This really freshens them up.

Next, make sure that each cabinet you are cleaning has a dedicated purpose and only put back in items that fit that purpose.  For example, I have a cabinet that is just for recess games and one for art supplies.  Nothing else goes in those cabinets.

Lastly, wipe off the shelves and place everything back in neatly.  Sometimes you have a lot of small things, like decks of playing cards, flashcards, etc.  I place those items in a clear container or basket so that they are contained yet visible.  I stack flat items with the largest box on the bottom and work my way up.  Totally manageable, right?

Tip 3 Organize by lexile

This is the perfect time to give your classroom library a quick revamp! Sort the books into categories to make them easy to find.  Examine your books to see if any need repair or replacing. When I go through my library, I also like to take note of what types of books I want to buy next.  If you are a little extra motivated, you can organize some or all of your books by their lexile with this easy site.  

I am very passionate about student representation in books, and I love that Scholastic has a section called, “We Need Diverse Books.”  I try to check it out every time I order and add a few new titles.  Growing my classroom library might even be more fun than organizing!

Tip 4 Get some chair pockets

Do some of your student desks literally seem to throw up papers sometimes? If so, let’s chat about the best way to clean classroom desks!   I like to give my students a few minutes on Friday afternoons to clean out their desks.  We technically have tables, so each student only has a small plastic drawer that slides under the table.  This was impossible to keep clean!  There was simply not enough room for all of their things.  

So, I purchased chair pockets with my supply money from Really Good Stuff.  Each student has a take-home folder and a classwork folder.  All papers should be in one of those two spots and never just shoved in the drawer or chair pocket.  That only lasts for so long, so we have to take a little time now and then to reset.  

When we are ready to organize, everything comes out of the drawer and chair pockets.  I give students have a baby wipe to clean out dust, pencil shavings, etc. (I clean table/desktops with bleach wipes when the students are not in the room.  While they clean, I walk around and observe.  This gives me a chance to notice who is not finishing their work and constantly sticking it in their folder and forgetting all about it.  As each student finishes cleaning, they get started on any incomplete work in their classwork folder.  If there is nothing in their folder, they can read silently.  This keeps us all busy and chaos to a minimum.  This should only take up a few minutes at the end of the day, and will benefit your students as they learn organizational habits to last a lifetime!

Tip 5 Find quick wins

This is a quick win and another project that students can help with!  Test the markers and recycle any that no longer write well. Put any stray whiteboard erasers back in their place.  Wipe down the ledge of your teacher whiteboard unless your custodian does that for you.  Give each whiteboard in your classroom a quick spritz of cleaner and voila!  Another task “marked off” your list!  (Pun totally intended)

Tip 6 Take it little by little

The filing cabinet is starting to become a thing of the past.  Gotta love Google Drive!   However, many teachers still have drawers and drawers of papers in file folders.  I keep my filing cabinet because many of the materials I got when I first started teaching, I do not have electronically.  I also have many file folder games to store.

There are a couple of ways to tackle this.  One way is simply each time you pull a file, go through it quickly and toss/recycle any outdated materials.  Be sure to shred any documents containing sensitive information. 

I prefer to go through each file one by one.  It is much easier to catch the materials that you never use this way.  However, I don’t do this every spring.  If I don’t have the time at school, I take a few files home each night.  It is easy to go through them while binge-watching my favorite Netflix shows! If you have never done it, now is the time!  

Tip 7 Reuse those crayons

My students have a caddy in the middle of the table that contains pencils, erasers, glue sticks, crayons, and scissors.  This is another perfect job for your students!  Have them work as a team to reorganize the caddy.  This coming school year, I would advise you to create individual supply boxes or bags, but the process would be the same! They can turn in dull pencils to be sharpened, check for dried-out glue sticks, and throw out small broken crayons.  If you are crafty, check out this blog post on fun ways to reuse old crayons!

Tip 8 Don’t forget about you

With all the germs circulating right now, I want my teacher area to be extra clean!  I have a teacher desk in my room, so I start by taking almost everything off the top and wiping it down. Next,  I change out any seasonal decor items I have sitting out.  I clean out each drawer and wipe it out if needed.  This makes my space more inviting, so I can sit at my desk and accomplish my never-ending task list!

Tip 9 Refresh student work

Last but not least, take a look at what you have displayed on the walls.  Is there any old student work that needs to be taken down?  Do you have any seasonal items that need to be updated?  If so, take a minute to swap some things out to update your room.

Why is it important to have a clean classroom?  We spend so much time there with our students, and a clean classroom is inviting!  Trust me, I enjoy getting messy with my students, but I equally enjoy putting things back in order, so we have a lovely space to work and play in. 

This coming year it will be more important than ever to have a clean classroom.  If you are shopping for your classroom this summer, I would stock up on lots of small containers, so students can have their own dice and other manipulatives. 

I hope you found some useful ways to freshen up and close out your classroom!  Here is a free checklist to help you get the job done.  If you want to take a peek at life inside my classroom be sure to follow me on Instagram! 

It gets even better! I am also giving away a FREE GUIDE to help you prepare for your teaching observation. It will walk you through everything that you need to do to get ready! Snag your copy here.