Classroom setup is a whole thing. Below are 10 tips and tricks for classroom setup. Please note that these are my own personal observations that you are free to agree with or disagree with. And you do what works for you in your classroom. I have had 7 classrooms in 13 years, so here are just some things I’ve learned from my many moves and set ups:

Tip #1: Stick to neutral!

Hear me out. I’m not saying you have to go all beige and white and neutral colors for everything (I mean, I prefer that, but that’s me). Your classroom does not have to be a boring beige classroom if that’s not your jam. You can have all the color you want. But a word of advice: when buying baskets or containers or caddies…things you are going to use for more than 1-3 years, buy them in a neutral color. If you want to have a neon room, put a neon label on a white bin. Then in 3 years when you want to do a room in various shades of blue or seventies flowers…you don’t have to get a new bin, just a new label. It will save you money and you will keep your bins longer.

My first classroom theme was chalkboard, neon, and chevron – that chevron pattern had us in a chokehold in the early aughts. So I bought neon baskets. When I changed to navy, pastel, and garden theme…all the neon looked terrible and I got rid of it. I now buy baskets and containers in neutral colors so that no matter what my theme is, I can still use them without them driving me crazy or having to get new ones.

Tip #2: The grass isn’t greener, it’s just more expensive

I love classroom setup vlogs. Love them. I love looking at TeacherGram to see what everyone is doing in their classroom. And four or five years ago…some of these classrooms I watch would send me into a comparison tailspin. (Still happens, but I’m better at dealing with that feeling now.)

Here’s the deal: someone is always going to have a classroom that looks better than yours. Always. It doesn’t matter how Pinterest perfect your space is, someone will always do it better and they will post it online and you will see it. Learn to let it go. Would your room look fantastic with a wall of white Billy bookcases from Ikea? Sure. Did the school give you about $500 to buy them? If the answer is yes, then go for it. Spend your money from the school however you see fit within the guidelines they give you. But should you spend $500 of your own money on them? No. And I’m preaching to the choir here because I am notorious for spending $5 here and there on my classroom and not saving the receipts because it was “not that expensive”. But enough “not that expensive”s add up and become quite expensive. I’m a work in progress.

Bottom line: many of these beautiful classrooms you see (including mine – at least, I think it’s beautiful) are the work of years. Years of swapping pieces, adding things, acquiring shelves and containers. These things don’t happen in a year, and if they do, it’s at a massive cost. One that isn’t worth it. So like all the pretty classrooms on the ‘gram, pin them all to your board, but work with what you have, don’t spend too much of your own money, and realize that if it isn’t how you want it this year, you can take steps to move it closer to what you want year by year.

That grass may be greener in that classroom next door, but I’d rather stay with my duller grass and use my personal money for things that do not involve my classroom.

Tip #3 Make it comfy

Following on the heels of the “don’t buy stuff” tip, this seems out of place. But it isn’t. Making a room comfy for you does not have to cost a dime. For me, one of the keys to my room being comfy is only turning on one overhead light. The kids can still see and I’m not bombarded by the overly bright florescent lights.

I also have a good cushion on my chair and all my stuff I need at my table in reach. So making a room comfy doesn’t mean you go out and buy a couch and a super nice rug. It means you make the space comfortable for you, the teacher.

You spend a lot of time in this room. You need to like it. Raid your parents and relatives attics for lamps to make it cozier, or get a cheap set of curtains from Walmart (if it is in your budget). Put up the poster of your favorite baseball team – the kids will like seeing this side of you, and you will be happier knowing that your personal stamp is on the room.

Also, don’t go with something trendy if you don’t actually like it. All the 70’s stuff that was super popular this year? Not my jam. Nor was all the boho rainbow theme of two years ago. I don’t care how popular a theme is – if you don’t like it, don’t do it. I go back to my chalkboard and neon – I hated that theme. In three years, almost everything I had that was chalkboard and neon was gone. But it was popular when I first started teaching so I went with it. Now if you see a trend and you love it, go for it, but remember: this is your classroom, you will spend 7 hours a day in it, you need to actually like your classroom.

Tip #4: Hot glue all the things

I have tried all the things. All the tapes, the sticky tack, all of it. If you have the traditional cinder block walls, the only thing that is going to hold your stuff is hot glue. It will stick stuff to your wall and will come off easily (most of the time).

There are some tricks to using it, though. If you are gluing a poster that isn’t laminated to a wall, put a few pieces of painters, masking, or packing tape on the back where you want to glue. Then put the glue on the tape. Now when you go to pull off your poster, you won’t rip it and it will help it come off easier. This also works when you are taping something like student artwork to your door. If you put a piece of tape down on the back of the student work first, you will not rip the item when you take it down.

But your best friend in hanging stuff up on the walls is hot glue. I do use the command velcro picture hangers for my pictures…but I usually put a dot or two of hot glue on the wall side velcro to make sure everything stays in place.

Tip #5 If you hate it, DIY it

I think, when designing schools, I think they go “what’s the ugliest, most easily dated color we can find?” and then they make all the countertops and cabinets in that color. So in my first classroom, it was so old I had a built in wooden cabinet. And when I moved into the “newer” wing of the building, I got cabinets that were a pretty terrible shade of gray, but they weren’t that bad.

Then I got to my new school. My first year there, I had a large cabinet that was PINK. Not a cute, pale pink. Nope. Weird 80s blush pink-almost-tan. But you know what I did? I covered it. A little chalkboard contact paper and some border and poof, you’ve got a lovely black cabinet that is a useable writing and hanging surface. My other cabinets were wood veneer and the countertop was ugly but it was kind of a weird tan-gray-white so it was fine. Then I moved. My new room not only had the giant pink cabinet, but ALL the cabinets were that color. And they were all topped off with this taupe-tan-pink countertop that was, frankly, pretty destroyed.

I know a lot of you are thinking “what’s the big deal?”, well, I’ll tell you. You have to be in your classroom all day, it’s important to like it. I couldn’t stand looking at those dirty pink cabinets. So I got out my handy-dandy contact paper – this time in wood look – and covered them. Then I covered the counter in marble contact paper. 2 years later, when I moved out, they still looked good. It also communicated to my students that I cared about the room and how it looked.

I had so many compliments on my room that year. And it cost me less than $50 (of my school-issued funds) to do all of it. And time. Lots of time. But it was worth it.

So getting back to tip #5: if you don’t like the way something looks, change it. Got a big ugly basket? Put a big pretty label on it and hide it. Paint the bookshelf, cover the table with contact paper, hot glue new labels over the 7+ years of sticky label and marker mess on the cubbies. I’m not talking about replacing every piece of furniture in your classroom (you can if you want to…) but remember that you can easily and inexpensively change almost any part of your classroom.

#6 Label everything

Physician…heal thyself. I am telling you this tip because it is one I struggle with and one I know would make a massive difference in my classroom, and that is to label EVERYTHING.

Everything.

All the things.

Slap a label on anything and everything you are going to use/want/need to find. Now part of the reason I haven’t done this is because I have a few hoarded boxes that I couldn’t begin to label but that’s another issue. And every time I have to go into those mystery boxes looking for something it takes me 10 times longer than it does to find the things in my nice labeled bins and boxes.

For example, I have five boxes of task card holders (photo organizers to normal people). I don’t have to open every single one to find the task cards I’m looking for, because on the top of the box is a label detailing what task cards are in the box. So it takes me less than a minute to find what I’m looking for.

My kids need a ruler? I point them over to the drawer area and they can find the drawer labeled “rulers” (it also has a picture of a ruler on the front). It also makes clean up so much easier – the students can be more independent with it and you can quickly put things away because you know where it all goes. If you label nothing else in your class, label the things the kids use (indoor recess items, supplies, etc) because it helps keep them organized and makes sure you don’t end up with a bin of glue, crayons, legos, chess pieces, and rulers trying to find one of the Battleship boats…

Labels make your life easier, they make the kids lives easier, and they make your classroom look generally more organized (even if one of your labels is just “Monica Closet”).

#7 A purpose and a place for everything

This goes along with tip #6. And like tip #6, I struggle with this one. Unfortunately, as teachers, we see so many things that we know we can use at some point. Will I probably use three paper towel rolls eventually? Yes. Do I have a place to store them and an actual plan to use them? If the answer is no, then I need to recycle them.

I know. It hurts our teacher hearts to throw away something that could possibly be useful. But for the sake of our classrooms, we have to do it.

Which brings us to tip #6. A purpose and place for everything. Everything in your classroom should have a purpose and a place. Preferably a labeled, organized place.

If it comes into your classroom, it needs to have a purpose – a use. What are you using it for? (not what might you use it for, but a concrete actual plan). If you don’t have a use, it might not need to come in. It also needs a place. Nothing makes me crazier than having stuff sitting out in my classroom. I organized our Trunk or Treat this year so I had boxes of candy just sitting…everywhere. And it made me nuts. A clean and organized workspace helps everyone feel less anxious and be more productive. So if there is not space for it and no purpose for it, don’t keep it.

This also means you need to make sure you have places for all your essential classroom functions. Where do the students turn in papers? Get supplies? Get their pencils sharpened? Blow their noses? Throw out their trash? Put their water bottles? Textbook storage? Where do coats go? These are all questions that need to be answered. These are all things that need a place to serve their purpose. Everything that has a purpose needs a place.

#8 Contain it

This one also goes along with tips #6 and #7. And I will go ahead and say that this one is a work-in-progress for me but I’m getting there. Contain everything. When you can stack boxes of expo markers, erasers, glue, scissors, and what-not in your cabinet because they are in nice, lidded containers – it’s not only a space-saver, but it makes things so much easier to get to.

I swear by the iris scrapbook containers and the sterilite locking ones in various sizes, but you can just as easily organize all your things in bins from the dollar tree or hand-me-downs from a retiring teacher/etc. I have been building my own collection of nice containers for years. So even if you see that one teacher with the perfectly labeled, matching bins just know…that probably took a few years to collect.

No matter what type of bins you use, contain your stuff. I even have all my math manipulatives in bags and then in a basket – that way I can grab whatever I need and nothing else. This also goes for your papers – put them in folders, bags, binders – whatever you need to keep them organized and easy to find.

Another reason for containing everything…it makes moving classrooms way easier than if you just have stacks of things. See the picture for when I had to move classrooms on short notice. It took me three trips on the flat bed to move from the portable to my current classroom, and this particular move took two trips on the flat bed since I had no large items to move. Everything stacked nicely, and it makes moving and putting things away much easier than if everything was just sort of…out.

#9 Be careful with soft surfaces

I have seen many a classroom with a couch or futon. I have had a couch in my room. And a futon.

I don’t any more.

I’m not saying that you should never have a couch in your room – as always, its your classroom, do what you want with it. But be careful with soft surfaces, like couches, in your classroom. Why? Because they are hard to clean. I remember when we locked down in 2020, my students had cushions for their chairs. When I went to clean up the room in June, let me tell you the smell coming from those cushions was something awful.

My 5th graders were not gross by any means, they weren’t having regular bathroom accidents or anything. But they were sitting on those after recess and PE, they did spill the occasional bit of snack on them, paint from our party, icing from decorating cookies, glue, they’d sit cross-legged getting whatever was on their shoes on their cushions. And you can’t wipe those with a Clorox wipe or cleaning solution. So they got pretty nasty over the course of a year.

Does that mean I have no fabric at all in my classroom? No. I have cushions and pillows for my reading area, curtains, and padded chairs. However they all share a common feature: the fabric comes off. That’s why the tip says “be careful” and not “Stay away from” soft surfaces. Be thoughtful about it. If you can easily clean it and it makes your classroom better/nicer for you or your students, then go for it. Otherwise, I’d steer clear.

#10 Make a path

Make a path? What does that mean? Well, it means you have to be able to move around your room. So do your students. Whenever I move the kids desks around, I pull out all their chairs and make sure that we can all walk around the room even if they didn’t push in their chair.

This also kind of goes back to purpose/place. Is there a space for the kids the line up? Is there a space for them to get to supplies without moving a bunch of stuff or interrupting other student’s learning? This is another part of paths.

Now, I don’t let my students sharpen pencils (it’s a pet peeve of mine). Because of this I keep a large bucket of sharp pencils where they can easily get them. I keep this area far enough away from where I have small groups and where I do instruction that students getting a pencil won’t really disturb their classmates.

We know it is important for children, especially elementary aged ones, to move frequently. Making sure they have a clear path means less issues with rotations for small group, easily accessible spaces for group work, and generally helps the classroom run smoother. So no matter how small your room is, make sure you have clear paths to move around.

That’s all the tips I have for you. Did I miss anything?