Work with your parents to designate a separate and quiet work area at home. Make sure there’s a desk or tabletop with good lighting and comfortable seating (or a large exercise ball for kids who need to fidget).

Hang up the school schedule and a small whiteboard or bulletin board for posting reminders.

Use and label bookshelves as well as see-through plastic jars, bins, or stackable drawers for storage. This makes stored materials easy to locate when they’re needed.

Use In and Out homework trays to track new and completed assignments.

Have a 3-tier organizer for things in-progress, to do later, and file away.

Use a 5 subject notebook and binders with tabs to consolidate course notes when allowed.

Color code supplies by subject. For example, make the composition book, folder, and binder for class X all red. Textbooks can also be color coded using book sock covers. Color coding makes supplies easy to track and sort. It’s an especially helpful strategy when there’s an extensive supply list or you are using a locker and transitioning between classrooms.

Label all binders, notebooks, and folders with their respective subject. Add your name and homeroom to the inside flap of everything so it can be returned if it’s ever lost.

It’s best to start with a durable backpack with enough zipper compartments so that everything can have an assigned pocket. Things are less likely to get lost if they are always kept in the same place. For example, pens should always be kept in the same front pocket for quick and easy access.

Create a backpack checklist to keep your backpack organized. The checklist describes each compartment and assigns each space a purpose. Photos are great for this!

Prepare your backpack the night before school and station it by the front door for the next morning to minimize frantic morning searches. 😅

Sort through and clean out your backpack and its contents at least once a week. This will prevent loose papers and old snacks from collecting and provide you the heads up when you need to replenish supplies of pens or paper (before it becomes an emergency).

Use a weekly homework planner and update it consistently. Highlight important due dates in a noticeable color, and cross off assignments as they are completed.

An important tip for making planners work well is to write “no homework” when nothing is due the next day rather than leave a subject blank. Why? It’s a great double-check strategy – when you actively note “no homework” days, you are both reminding yourself that you checked, and teaching yourself that a blank space in your planner needs further investigation.

Use a paper clip, binder clip, or personalized bookmark to mark the page or week inside the planner so it’s easy to flip to in a hurry.

Have an expandable 7-pocket file folder or accordion folder divided by subject for all homework. Keeping all homework in one folder divided by subject makes it easier to remember and carry between classes or to and from school.