It’s Back-To-School Time: Is Your Classroom Storage Ready?

Save Space & Beat Budget Concerns with These Easy Storage Tips

Preschool, daycare, and elementary school classrooms need plenty of space to store supplies and items, especially at the beginning of the school year. The more organized your storage, the smoother your classroom runs—but the costs of storage can add up fast, especially if you’re working with limited space.

These storage tips will help you create more storage room in your classroom for less, and save you time and money throughout the school year.

Save big on large storage items

There are several storage solution companies that offer great discounts for teachers and daycare owners. The Container Store carries nothing but storage options, from toy storage and kitchen containers to wheeling drawers and stack baskets—and they offer 15% off all purchases for teachers. You can also check out Discount School Supply for affordable storage solutions and classroom furniture.

If you have older kids in your classroom and you’re looking to save on storage furniture like cubbies or bookshelves, look for an unfinished furniture store in your area. These stores typically offer drastically reduced prices on new, unpainted furniture, and you can make painting your new storage units into a great class project.

Think outside the (storage) box

You may have noticed that products designated for classrooms often cost more. So when you’re shopping for storage containers for your preschool, daycare, or classroom, look to non-classroom specific solutions. Everyday items like cleaning buckets, laundry baskets, plastic shoe boxes, and hanging closet organizers can be affordable and convenient solutions for your classroom storage needs.

Find free, gently used items on Freecycle

Donation drives can be effective at getting new equipment and storage for your classroom, but there may be a faster and easier way. Check out Freecycle.org, a worldwide nonprofit community network that helps connect people with the things they need for free, while letting people donate unwanted items without the hassle of hauling them to a charity store or throwing them away.

Freecycle is easy to use. Once you join your local community, you can browse offerings for free stuff posted by members, and post messages asking for donations of the items you need. People on Freecycle love donating to teachers, because they know their items are going to a good cause.

Use vacuum sealing bags to increase storage space

Vacuum sealing can be a great storage solution for any classroom. This airtight, compressed method of storage isn’t just for food—you can store just about anything you can place in a bag quickly and conveniently, for as long as needed.

Just a few ways you can save money and space by using vacuum sealing bags in the classroom include:

• Purchase a year’s supply of soap, sanitizer, and other hygiene products in bulk, and break up the supplies into monthly units. Then, store each unit in a vacuum sealed bag—this keeps the products fresh and ready to use.
• Buy classroom snacks in bulk, and store them in vacuum seal bags for long-lasting freshness. Vacuum sealed fruits and vegetables enjoy a dramatically extended shelf life, and this storage method also keeps things like crackers and cookies fresh and crisp.
• Store bulky blankets and spare winter clothing in vacuum sealed bags to save lots of space until cold weather arrives.
• Vacuum sealing bags are very durable and have a high capacity, so you can use them to store miscellaneous items like small toys, building blocks, and loose crayons, markers, and pencils, and leave them unsealed for fast access.

September is just around the corner, so make sure you’re prepared. With some creative planning and looking around, you can make sure your classroom storage is ready to handle back-to-school time, while you save money and space.