Do you remember your middle school years? Do you remember being afraid of how you would manage changing classes all day long? It can be pretty stressful. Remember, middle school is a transition to high school. It allows students to be more independent and find their own style of getting their work done. It's a great place to learn essential organizing habits and experiment with different ones to see what works best. Unfortunately, many kids and parents lack guidance on how to determine what works. Here are five organizing essentials to help you and your student make this middle school year a huge success.
Jump to:
- Organizing Essential #1: Make a study space for your student.
- Organizing Essential #2: Have a good place to transport papers from school.
- Organizing Essential #3: Get a great planner to help manage your time.
- Organizing Essential #4: Create a designated space for items that need to go to school.
- Organizing Essential #5: Designate a space to store all after-school activities.
- The Complete Organizing Kids Sports Equipment Guide
- Update 2025: Some more middle school essential items and tips:
Organizing Essential #1: Make a study space for your student.
Not all students have a designated study area. Find a place that has minimal distractions and allows the student to focus. Provide items such as a desk, a chair (affiliate), a place for supplies, and a laptop or tablet so they can get online to research or get homework from the teacher's website.
Children's Desk with Chair, Bulletin Board and Cabinets, White
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Organizing Essential #2: Have a good place to transport papers from school.
Many middle schoolers often misplace documents between their binder (affiliate), lockers, and backpacks (affiliate), so having a folder or something for each subject will help them stay on top of the paper clutter. Check out the way we set up our son's backpack for inspiration.
Getting the right backpack (affiliate) is essential for back support, storage, and organization. Invest in this backpack (affiliate) before school starts, and they will most likely be able to use it for at least three or four years.
Having compartments will make organizing a variety of things more manageable. And will allow for easy access. These backpacks (affiliate) are also great for travel and work.
Organizing Essential #3: Get a great planner to help manage your time.
I particularly like "Order out of Chaos" Academic Planner (affiliate link) for middle school students. It has areas for managing time and your assignments. Click this link to learn about my prior post on ways to improve the students' success with using a planner.
Read about why I love these planners so much! The Reasons I Love Order Out of Chaos Academic Planners.
Organizing Essential #4: Create a designated space for items that need to go to school.
Keeping your drop zone for your middle school student organized will keep your hallway or mud room organized. Have an area in your home that your students know is their place to store anything that comes home or anything that needs to go to school. This could be a cubby system
that keeps your student's stuff organized, like the one below. Or it could be a section in a closet. Here is an example of one I had for my kids. Click on the image to read more about the transformation.
The original waterproof name label for kids and families.
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Check out my post: Incredible Tips on Labeling Kids' School Supplies, where I use these labels and give tons of tips!
Organizing Essential #5: Designate a space to store all after-school activities.
Another essential for a successful year is to help middle school students keep their after-school activities' equipment organized so they never get lost. This can be in an insulated garage (affiliate), a section of the bedroom, a mudroom, or a larger foyer. Customized containers for a particular sport help keep the items organized. Check out my organizing small sports equipment post to give you some ideas.
The Complete Organizing Kids Sports Equipment Guide
If you have kids, like me, you will likely have a lot of sports equipment in your home. You know the items I'm referring to - the knee pads, uniforms, shirts, and pants. Items specifically for sports, such as tennis balls, baseball gloves, shin guards, baseball bats, cleats, and helmets, can be challenging to find
Update 2025: Some more middle school essential items and tips:
Below are some other middle school essential items and tips that may help you and your student.
- Keep an open line of communication with the middle school student. The student may keep their problems to themselves. Asking open-ended questions about their day will help them elaborate on their situation.
- Reach out and meet new people. Trying different clubs and activities will help students find the right place for them. In the middle school years, they discover their interests and the kind of people they want to be around.
- Be yourself and kind to others. Middle school students can feel a little shy. But instead, take a chance and ask people how to help. Minimize the gossip and minimize the drama.
- Middle school is hard at first. But it will get better and easier to manage. Be patient through the process.
I hope these steps help you keep your middle school student organized and on track for a successful school year. Do you have any tips that will help middle school students? Please leave a comment below. I would love to hear from you.
Please note these are affiliate links through Amazon (affiliate), and at no additional cost to you, I will earn affiliate fees if you decide to make a purchase.
Below are a variety of other back-to-school posts to help you.
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