There’s nothing cuter than little kids walking into a classroom carrying larger-than-life bags with school supplies. If you don’t have a plan for collecting them, you will end up with bags piled up all over and a ton of extra work to do!
Here’s a 3-Step Plan for collecting school supplies on the first day of school.
1. Lay Out Containers!
Lay out containers on the floor. If you can, try to use the bins in which you will be keeping the school supplies for the rest of the year. If not, big boxes will do the trick.
Place a sample of the supply you want to go in each container right in front of it. This way, your kids will know exactly where things go!
2. Let Students Disperse Their School Supplies
As students come in, direct them to where the bins are and ask them to sort their supplies into each bin. All they have to do is match what they have with what’s in front of the bins!
Paper reams and tissue boxes can be piled on the floor or on your counters.
Unlike community supplies, personal items like scissors, pencil boxes, and notebooks can go directly into the students’ desks, or into the place you have for them to keep their items.
I liked having labels with students’ names, or simply a sharpie that I used to write their names on everything they own. Try to have that done within the first few days of school.
3. Students Open Packages
Finally, let your students open packages for you! Kids love being teacher helpers, right? Ask students who finished their Back to School work, who are doing a good job listening, or students who need a little break to help with this task! In the end, everyone will benefit from this, and you will have saved precious time!
That’s It!
At the end of the day, you will have significantly less to deal with, and your room won’t look like a department store after Black Friday.
For more classroom management tips check out these posts:
- Control Pencil Chaos Once and For All!
- 20 Questions to Ask Yourself When Preparing for the 1st Day of School
- Back to School Tips Vol.1
For these first week of school Resources click on the links:
