Naomi Meredith [00:00:00]:

Welcome to the Elementary STEM Coach Podcast. I’m your host, Naomi Meredith, a former classroom teacher turned K-5 STEM teacher and coach. With over a decade of experience teaching and a master’s degree in STEM leadership, I’m here to coach you throughout the year to help you gain back more time to create innovative experiences for your students.

If you’re in back-to-school mode and starting to set up your classroom, this quick tip will help you think through how to organize your makerspace or STEM supplies for the year. This mini episode is a clip from episode 150, and I’m sharing how I set up my supplies to stay organized all year long without constantly resetting things for every lesson. Whether you have a full makerspace or just a few bins of supplies, these simple strategies can help make your space more functional and your students more independent.

Let’s jump in. When it comes to the specific materials that you are setting up, I actually kept my makerspace supplies set up year round, and this was really helpful because if there were times I needed specific materials for certain projects, maybe they were makerspace, maybe they weren’t, I knew where they were at at all times. Now, I was really lucky the furniture in my room had wheels.

I could move them around if needed. I typically didn’t, but I kept all of my supplies out. Everything was labeled with pictures and with words to not only help students who are pre-readers, but all students.

It’s really awesome having everything labeled with pictures and words because you can find exactly where everything goes, and it helps the students be really independent. I already created these labels for you, and there’s an editable slide you can create your own that match. So again, that will also be linked in the show notes.

All these resources that I’m talking about will be linked for you to make it nice and easy. I also kept my staple supplies that are in high demand and are needed for all grade levels, my scissors, my crayons, my markers, and even a spot for pencils all in one location of the classroom. Those were there all of the time, and students knew that they could grab those as needed.

All of my markers were color-coded in drawers, in those paper drawers. If you know what I’m talking about, they’re the three stacked drawers, and you pull them out. I organized them by color because I thought it looked really nice.

It was easier to clean up, and we didn’t use markers all the time. I actually had the same markers for five years, and they were ready to go for probably another five. Markers weren’t used very often in my classroom.

With crayons, I tried a lot of different things. I tried individual supply boxes. I tried those supply caddies where you can have crayons and all sorts of things in one.

I tried big buckets. So what I ended up finding that worked best is I had small metal buckets that were for crayons. They had the little handle.

Those are in Dollar Tree spots all the time. You might even get some for gifts. I know I get those for little gifts all the time.

People give those to me with cool things in them, but I used those for crayons, and they were the perfect size because the crayons could stand up nicely. The kids could grab and go put them at their table, and so it made sharing a lot easier, and they looked really cute too. Scissors and glue sticks were in their own bigger plastic buckets, just some plastic buckets that I had when I first started teaching actually, and then I kept pencils in separate buckets as well.

Now you might be thinking, why did you keep this all separate? Okay, so I did put them all together before. I had the crayons, the pencils, the scissors. They kept getting mixed up, and when I used them with the younger kids, they were so excited that they had scissors and glue sticks all to themselves, and it became a distraction tool, and it really wasn’t organized.

Kids were throwing trash in there, and so if I kept everything separated for certain projects, especially for the younger students again, if they only needed crayons, I could pull out just the crayons. If we only needed scissors, I could pick out just the scissors. It really did make cleanup a lot easier when everything was separated, so think about those staple items.

That was really helpful, and students actually told me how they liked it was organized. I asked them, and they said they really liked it, and the kids would tell me all the time how organized I was, and that’s saying a lot in a STEM classroom where things are happening in projects all the time, and yes, we have projects everywhere, but I’m a very organized person. I’m not very clean.

I’m very organized. There is a difference. If you have your Makerspace set up all year, it doesn’t mean you are doing Makerspace projects all year.

However, I do recommend keeping stock of items year-round. Maybe you ask certain grade levels to help you collect items for a project that is coming up with their grade. You could send out an email to just that grade level, so if you need more pipe cleaners, maybe just that grade level helps you with pipe cleaners.

If you are needing more thin cardboard, I pretty much almost always use thin cardboard. I didn’t use big boxes of cardboard, but if you need thin cardboard, the Teacher’s Lounge is a treasure trove of thin cardboard. I put in a donation box in the Teacher’s Lounge.

I wrote a note on there, hey, any thin cardboard from your meals, put them in this box, and it would be full by the end of the week, and so if I was good on the cardboard, I would take the box away. If I was running low, I put the box back, and it was a really great way to collect cardboard that was going to get thrown away anyway. I hope these tips help you rethink how to store your supplies, whether you’re running a full makerspace or just want a more student-friendly system.

If you want to grab the labels I mentioned or see a few pictures of my setup, I’ve linked those resources for you in the show notes. If you’re looking for more support when setting up your entire STEM space, systems and routines, and how to plan lessons, check out my STEM Teacher 101 course. You will get all of the lessons, resources, and checklists and can finish everything at your own pace.

There’s even a private podcast feature, which I think you will love. For being a podcast listener, you can get $30 off my signature STEM Teacher 101 course using this code PODCASTBFF. All one word, no spaces, PODCASTBFF.

And if you’re enjoying these bite-sized episodes, let me know. I’d love to keep creating quick wins that help support you in your STEM classroom and help you get going on your way. Thank you so much for listening to today’s episode of the Elementary STEM Coach Podcast.

I would love to connect with you over on Instagram at Naomi Meredith underscore, or send me an email to elementarystemcoachpodcast at gmail.com. Also, make sure to check out my website, Naomi Meredith.com to see all the show notes from today’s episode and shop my K-5 STEM resources. Any questions you have, needs for resources, or ideas for episodes, get in touch. I’ll talk to you soon.