Great Backpack Storage Ideas and Solutions for the Classroom

As you’re preparing for the first day of school, there’s probably a lot of things on your to-do list. At the elementary level, this most likely includes things like creating a seating chart, putting together homework folders, and fine-tuning your behavior plan. As you work through all of these details, I encourage you to also put some serious thought into various backpack storage ideas and which will work best for you and your students.

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Classroom Backpack Storage Ideas

Many classrooms have a designated backpack station. Maybe a set of cubbies near the door or a backpack rack with coat hooks or pegs. Some schools have nothing in place and students hang their backpacks on the back of their chairs.

Before we talk about backpack storage ideas, let’s look at a few problems backpacks can create in the classroom.

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Problems With Backpacks In The Classroom

No matter what the storage situation is in your room, there are some things to consider before deciding where your students will keep their personal items.

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Accessibility

Accessibility is usually my number one concern. Ask yourself – Do you want the kids to have easy access to their backpacks? Let’s think it through just a bit.

• Pros – Having easy access is a great idea when you don’t have student mailboxes. Kids can easily put their school papers and graded work right into their backpacks without much fuss. That means fewer important papers getting lost or stuffed in the back of desks. Easy access also makes arrival and packing up at dismissal a bit faster – and you won’t have a traffic jam around one centralized area.

• Cons – When students can easily access backpacks, you may find that you have to monitor them a lot more. Little kids love to bring toys to school. Big kids love to bring their phones. If backpacks are right there all day, the temptation to go get those fun things can be hard to resist. How much time do you want to spend keeping an eye on that?

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Traffic Flow

If there is already a designated place for backpacks right by the front door, you may be inclined to just use it and move on.

• Pros – Morning arrival is a breeze with this set up. Students come in and hang up their backpacks before heading into the room. This works out especially well if you have late arrivals. They can come in and unpack without distracting everyone else.

• Cons – This convenient spot can cause problems with traffic flow – especially if your school has small entryways. How much chaos can you tolerate? Will a traffic jam of kids each morning drive you crazy? Do you have procedures in place to prevent the same kind of backup at the end of the day?

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If there is a lot of space where your students enter the room, it can be the perfect place for entryway cubbies or wall hooks. But if the majority of your floor space is inside the room, a different organization system might actually be better. We’ll talk about other backpack storage ideas in a moment.

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Close Quarters

This is a touchy subject because kids can’t help what their parents do. But if you’ve ever had a student from a family of heavy smokers or with a cat that doesn’t use the litter box, you know where I’m going with this. If the house smells, the backpack smells. And when all of the backpacks are in a tight space, odors transfer.

True story – I once had a parent complain that I must be smoking in the classroom because every day her child came home with a backpack that reeked of smoke. Needless to say, no one was smoking in my room. It was the backpacks.

Another consideration in the elementary classroom is lice. Lice issues are handled differently in different places. In my district, they no longer send kids home for lice – just a note asking the parents to treat with special shampoo. When all of the backpacks are hung closely together – often with jackets there too – one kid with lice can easily become 3, 4, or 5 kids with lice. If this is a common problem at your school, it’s something to consider when planning your backpack storage system.

If you are able to space the backpacks apart, do it.

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Visibility

The last thing to think about when considering different backpack storage ideas is visibility. Do you have a good view of the backpacks? Can your students see them easily? This might not seem super important, but it can be. 

When I taught first and second grade, there were a number of incidents of stealing each year. Nothing major – I’m not talking grand theft. But at least a few times each year, one student would accuse another of stealing a special pencil or some lunch money. It usually involved something being hidden in a backpack. And since teachers can’t conduct a search, I would have to call administration. A lot of the drama could have been avoided if I’d just had a clear view of the backpacks throughout the day.

In older grades – 5th and up mostly (but sometimes 4th) – you might want the backpacks mostly out of view. This is when some girls start needing personal items and they are often embarrassed by it. It can be a really big deal to an 11 or 12-year old. A simple solution is letting them access their backpacks away from their classmates’ view (especially the boys). 

So think about your students’ age, developmental stage, and how important it is for you to keep an eye on the backpacks.

• Pros – You can keep an out for any shenanigans and shady behavior.

• Cons – Students can be distracted by others accessing the backpacks if they are visible; lack of privacy for some students.

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Alternative Backpack Storage Ideas

As teachers, there’s no perfect solution. We have to work with the available space in our rooms. It’s not like we can just knock down a wall or put up an addition.

But before you just accept whatever set-up is already in place, I encourage you to spend a little extra time at the beginning of the year thinking about different backpack storage ideas. There are many creative ways to manage backpacks besides the traditional coat hooks by the door.

Here are some backpack storage ideas to consider:

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Cubbies or Shelves

When I taught second grade, one entire long wall was full of divided shelves – more than any teacher could ever dream of using. I filled a bunch of them with books. I filled more with bins of task cards, school supplies, and math manipulatives. I still had at least 20 feet of shelves left. So I decided to forgo the backpack hooks by the front door and turn the shelves into cubbies.

This worked well because:

• Each student had their own area – no inter-mingling (odors, lice, etc.)
• The backpacks were visible to me.
• Students had easy access when needed.
• There was room for lunch boxes too.

The downside to this arrangement was that some desks were VERY close to the cubbies which was a distraction for those students.

Don’t have cubbies in your room? A couple of 9-cube organizers will do the trick and you can put them wherever you want – and easily move them if you need to rearrange your classroom.

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Back of Chairs

One school I worked at didn’t have any designated area for book bags. There were no hooks or cubbies, and the room was SMALL. The only real option was to have my students hang their backpacks on their chairs.

The positives of this system were:

• Easy to access
• Kids could keep school supplies in their backpack instead of their desk.
• No inter-mingling
• Packing and unpacking each day was much faster.

The downside to this solution is space. My room was already small and hanging backpacks on the chairs made it even harder to walk around the room. 

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Laundry Baskets

If your students sit at tables or in groups, and you have enough floor space, this can be a good idea. One laundry basket can easily hold four backpacks. Number your baskets to match your table numbers and stash them in a convenient spot.

Why this works:

• They’re moveable – Don’t like where your baskets are? Just move them to a new spot.
• Baskets can be spaced out around the room to avoid everyone packing and unpacking in the same spot.

This isn’t my favorite solution but it does work if you don’t have a better way, and you can get baskets fairly cheaply at your local dollar store. Plastic storage bins without the lids can be used in the same way.

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Command Hooks

If your classroom doesn’t have coat hooks – or you don’t like where they are located – Command Hooks are a great way to manage backpacks. Why?

• They are easy to move. You can change your backpack spot next year, or anytime you want.
• They can be spaced out as much as you like for good traffic flow and separation between students.
• You can customize the height for your students.

The downsides – You need a decent amount of wall space and Command Hooks can be pricey. If you create a classroom wishlist to share with parents at Meet the Teacher, hooks would be a great item to include!

Now that you’ve thought about all of the possibilities and potential problems, you can start thinking about which backpack storage ideas will work best for you and your students. Having a good system in place before a new school year starts takes a little extra time and effort, but it will pay off in the long run. So get out your to-do list and add just one more thing – backpacks.