Take some time at the start of the school year to work on organizational strategies with your middle school daughter. If you have a tween daughter who is already neat and tidy, this isn't a big deal, but in my experience with tweens and middle school students, organization is not learned by osmosis, and a little guidance can go a long way. Down the road, a lack of organization can seriously impact grades, and one of the first places to look, when grades drop, is at your tween's school bag.
Middle school students make a transition, from self-contained classroom, to rotating schedule, from one teacher, to many. This alone can throw things out of kilter for a student. Books can be stored in lockers, but many schools only allow locker stops before and after school, and during lunch break. Planning is essential, so that your tween makes it to class with all needed supplies.
The best school bag choices for disorganized students are those which are easy to store books in. Messenger style school bags are ideal, as the spacious design is easy to open and view, and is well suited to organizing and retrieving books and paper work. Backpacks are fine, as long as your tween learns to carefully store materials. Too many tweens cause themselves problems by shoving books into a bag, along with papers and materials, creating a sea of academic materials that have no sense of organization.
A good binder, as well, can be a tremendous help in maintaining organization in a school bag.
Case It binders are great, with good organization, and strong closures. For
more about academics and organization for tweens, read here.
If you have a daughter that likes to sew, or if you are sew inclined yourself, this kit from My Mind's Eye is fresh and colorful in bright yellow plaid. My tween and teen daughters have been on a mission to create their own school totes this spring, with tremendous results. It can be challenging, though, to find easy to follow directions and well assembled patterns. A kit like this makes for a fantastic summer project. If you need a sewing machine recommendation, my daughters do really well with a basic Brother, as this is what is used in the 4H programs here. They do really well, in fact!
