Start the school year off right by using these 5 easy back to school organization ideas for your home! Paper organization, binders, and clothes oh my! Parents, have no fear, because these ideas will save you time on your morning routine and cause less stress around the house once school begins!

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5 Easy Back to School Organization Ideas for Your Home

Ok, parents. Where do you stand? Are you sad to see summer end or are you sitting on the edge of your seat to send your kiddos into a fresh new school year!?

It’s that time of year again, and this time, I’m on the other end of back to school! I used to teach fourth grade and the end of summer meant that it was back to work! Now, as a parent, I can’t help but smile as I think about the start of the school year! I am so sentimental (I cry at Pampers commercials.), so having my son start kindergarten in the fall is almost devastating! At the same time, I’m really excited for him as he starts this new adventure! Luckily he’s just as excited if not more, so that makes this transition even easier…on me. 😉

As a teacher I was organized. I had to be. As a mom, well…I’ve slacked in that area!

I CAN be organized, but since I’ve been home trying to keep two little humans alive, organization slowly dropped down on my To Do list. I’m in awe of parents who can stay super organized while taking care of multiple tiny humans!

Related: Easy to Use Home Organization Products

Related: Family Command Center: Back of Door Storage

Now that my daughter is two, the survival clouds are starting to part, and I am able to focus more on organization. Over the past year I’ve been working hard at getting organized and staying organized! Check out my favorite organizing products in my post, “Easy to Use Home Organization Products!” My plan is to continue my organizational quest as I enter this next chapter called ELEMENTARY SCHOOL! This time I’ll be focusing on back to school organization ideas for my home!

If you need a quick jumpstart to getting organized, check out my “30 Day Checklist to Simplify Your Home” for quick and easy ways to get organized!

The key is getting things ready before the guns go off and it’s the school year rat race! I realize that my son is only going to be in kindergarten, but it’s very different than when I was five! My daughter will be starting preschool as well. She will be going for two hours three mornings a week. Not for nothing, but preschool is more work for the parents these days as well! This is why I need to get everything organized and in place before school starts!!!

Take a look at these 5 easy ways to help with back to school organization! Scroll down for my video!

Who is with me!?

5 Easy Ideas to help with Back to School Organization:

Designate a place for backpacks
Create a place for important school papers
Organize your kids’ clothes
Start using a family calendar
Make a place where you store extra school supplies

Designate a place for backpacks–

All I have to say is start them young! Create a place where the backpacks stay. You don’t need a coat closet or a mudroom locker system, although that sure sounds nice! I made a place for backpacks in my kitchen. I call it my “mud-corner.” Some people have a mudroom, I have a mud-corner. My house is small, but we are still able to locate backpacks, because they have a designated place.

I started this when my son was two and that is where he has kept his backpack for his preschool career. My two-year-old daughter puts her little backpack away also. It’s a habit that has been formed. It’s important for the backpack place to be kid accessible. If they can’t reach the hook, it will be harder for them to do it on their own. That is why I hung these hooks low enough for my kids to reach them. When they get bigger and their backpacks get heavier, we will have to change this, but for now, it works great!

Create a place for school papers–

Although most schools are getting better at sharing things digitally, we still get a lot of papers that come home! Some of those papers have to be returned as well. As I see it you have a few of options.

Keep the important school papers in a specific binder and create a system for papers that need to be signed and returned. You can also use file folders or wall file holders to help with school organization.
Scan the papers and store them digitally on a computer in a specific file.
Take a picture of the papers with your phone and create a favorites folder for them on your phone.

I love the idea of less paper clutter, but if you know me, you know that I’m a belt and suspenders kind of gal. I’ll be using the binder that I already have for school and take pictures of some of the papers. A lot of things are available online as well, so make sure you take a look at your child’s school website.

Organize your kids’ clothes–

Before school starts, you will feel so much better if the clothes situation is taken care of! Fights over shirts that are too small or have holes in them will be a thing of the past! When it comes to my son we are so lucky to receive hand-me-downs from our family and friends. However, sometimes we have several bags of clothes that I have to go through. I store them in the attic or basement until they are needed. So that I’m not scrambling once school starts, it’s important that I go through the bags and weed out anything that I don’t want to keep, and then wash and put away the things that I do want to keep. I’ll also sort through any of his clothes that are too small to donate or sell in our upcoming yard sale!

I have two clear bins that fit under my son’s bed for clothes that he is going to grow into during the year. Once I remove anything that is too small from his dresser, everything else that fits him is in his dresser or closet. If there is anything that his sister can wear, I’ll keep that and then donate or sell the rest. I keep their clothes folded in these canvas bins from Ikea. They are amazing for keeping their drawers more organized!

Start using a family calendar–

The start of the school year is a great time to start using a family wall calendar. The calendar needs to hang in a place that can be seen on a daily basis and is easy to access. If your kids are older, they can write down any of their events on the calendar, otherwise, the adult(s) in charge can take care of writing everything down. I find that writing my family’s schedule for the entire month works best. Then, if new things appear, I can add them in.

I use the gorgeous acrylic wall calendar above that I bought from a site on Etsy. I created a family command center in two parts in my kitchen. The acrylic wall calendar was part 2! You can read the post, “Family Command Center: Acrylic Wall Calendar” to see more photos! Part 2 of the Family Command Center was all about using the back of a door for family paper storage! If you want to see where I bought the wall calendar along with all of her other beautiful wall calendars click HERE!

In addition to the wall calendar, a great way to help with back to school organization is to sync your phone calendars with other family members if possible! This really helps with busy schedules and if you have a partner who travels or works outside of the home!

Make a place where you store extra school supplies–

Every month at my son’s preschool they have a donation request. They ask for things like paper towels, Clorox wipes, tissues, hand wipes, etc. It was only once a month, but I didn’t always remember! Oops!

I wish I had bought stuff ahead of time to keep for when it was needed. If you are super organized and on top of sending in things to your kid’s classroom, then you probably don’t need to read this blog post. However, if you are like me, it’s helpful to have extra school supplies at home when needed! I’m talking about pencils, crayons, erasers, and more!

Having a specific place where you keep these supplies is great for multiple reasons! You will know when you are running low and your children will be able to take what they need for school on their own! There are so many back to school sales where you can take advantage of low prices and stock up on school supplies for the year!

I might be new to elementary school days as a parent, but I do know that the better prepared you are and ready with back to school organization, the more smoothly the school year will run!