How To: Prepare For the Back-to-School Season - A 2 Part Series
It’s that time of year again! Back-to-school season! I don’t know about you all, but this is one of my favourite times of the year, it’s a new season, a fresh start and the perfect time to get organized!
Hi my name is Nikki and I am new to Popped Closet. I am also new to this whole blog thing but I am a gen Z, so I was basically born for this. A few facts about me; I just moved into my first ever apartment (solo) after living in student housing/dorms for the past 7 years. I went off to boarding school in grade 10, lived in Residence at Queens University, and have lived with my 5 best friends for the past 3 years in our student home. So I know a few things about moving in/out and how to conquer the back-to-school season.
I’m no “Super Parent” like most of you, but I know there is much more to a successful back-to- school season than cool notebooks, pretty binders, and new clothes. From sorting through matching Tupperware to organising the endless stream of forms and art projects, this 2 part blog series will have a range of tips to get you organised and ready for the back-to-school season and hacks on how to manage the chaos throughout the school year.
In this post you’ll find part 1 of a two phase back-to-school organisation guide with specific product recommendations, organisation hacks, and schedule advice.
Operation Organise
As an independent woman and long time student who has been long obsessed with lists and POAs, I like to tackle the back-to-school season in 2 phases. The Preparation Phase and The Maintenance Phase. The Preparation phase is all about preparing, purging and planning (the three P’s), and The Maintenance Phase is about maintaining a simple and structured routine. The key to the whole operation is starting early!!
PHASE 1: Preparation Phase
As I mentioned, this phase is all about the three P’s. Prepare. Purge. Plan.
Prepare
This is the easiest of them all and you’ve already done it. Start Early! By starting early we can get ahead
of all the September stress and hopefully make your everyday routines more simple and enjoyable.
Purge
a) School Supplies:
Before you think about buying any school supplies, go through all of the pens, pencils, markers, crayons, papers, etc, and see what you have already that can be used this upcoming year. Go through every pen, marker, and crayon by testing them so you can throw away the ones that don’t work. You can also get your kids involved in this by putting down a large sheet of paper and two buckets for “keep”; and “toss”.
After you’ve gone through your supplies you can now easily see what you need.
b) Current Kids Clothes:
The same principles for the school supplies apply here. Now is the perfect time to go through
your kid’s clothes to see what still fits and organise their closets. Go through all the drawers,
closets, and bins and take out anything that is too small or is damaged and overworn. Consider
donating the items that are too small to these local thrift shops.
★ YGK Thrift all proceeds go to the interval house.
Going through your kid’s closet is a great way to show you the clothing items your child actually needs for the upcoming school year, as well as how much storage space you have for new clothes.
TIP: If storage space is lacking, consider maximizing drawer storage by inserting drawer dividers. These create self-contained compartments within the drawer so you can keep your shorts separate from your pants and your T- shirts separate from your long sleeves.
c) Expired Items and Mismatching Tupperware
Go through your pantry and fridge and check all the expiry dates. Take everything out, give the shelves a wipe and throw away everything that is expired. This will not only free up some storage space but it will also show you what your family isn’t consuming so Once you’ve done this, you can go the extra step and introduce organisational systems within your pantry. I like to group similar items (breakfast foods, Dinner foods, snacks) so that packing lunches is quick and easy and I know what is running low.
While we’re in the kitchen, we may as well take out all the Tupperware, thermoses, water bottles, etc and make sure everyone has a lid. This will ensure you always have a perfect set ready to go and you’ll never have to fidget through an overwhelming amount of Tupperware lids while packing lunches again!
Plan
The last step of phase one is planning. My recommendation here is to have a large monthly calendar in order to avoid forgetting those parent teacher interviews, PA days, or even soccer tryouts. It’s important to hang it in a spot that is highly visible, whether it be on the fridge or right by the door. I like to have mine hung in the entryway so I can see everything right as I leave the house!
Now onto organising the calendar:
The very first thing I do at the start of every school year is sync my school calendar with my personal calendar. This can be easily found on the schools website and allows you to keep track of important dates, special events and school breaks. After that, you can add in everything else. I personally like to colour code my schedule by category, for example, red=school, blue=sports, green = appointment, etc. For the calendar itself, I personally like to use the Adhesive dry erase monthly calendar from Walmart, but you can also use a chalkboard or even index cards on a string.
That concludes the end of Phase 1! Next week I’ll post part 2, which is all about phase 2: The Maintenance Phase. This phase is all about maintaining a simple and structured routine and includes tips on how to manage the influx of forms, art, and papers.
-Nikki