Just like Christmas, it seems like we are saying it a few days and weeks earlier every year, but yes, it is absolutely back to school season. With all of the changes that come with the start of a new school year, it helps to prepare your home and your routine to accommodate your new busier schedule. In today’s article, we’ve put together some great tips for preparing your home to help empower you to best handle the back to school rush. Read on and enjoy and sound off in the comments if you have any tips or tricks you’d like to share!

Stage 1: Sanitization Of High Touch Areas

Sanitization is more of a way of life these days than ever before, but it is a necessary “evil” despite how much time it can take out of our already busy schedules. But, letting germs and sickness take hold in the home is worse by far, so we must power through and ensure that the germs are kept in check, especially during the school year when your children are exposed to and bringing home more germs than ever.

Keeping germs in check doesn’t have to mean that you must scour every inch of your home with bleach. You can absolutely prioritize and clean smartly in order to get the most ROI for your cleaning efforts. High touch zones should be sanitized through a 1 to 10 bleach to water ratio, or a 1 to 2 white vinegar to water ratio. You can use paper towels or clean microfiber cloth. 

• Doorknobs
• TV remotes and game console controllers
• Toilets in general, but especially the handles and seats
• Faucet handles
• Light switches
• Eating areas like table tops and countertops
• Computer mice and keyboards (for homework related or shared computers especially)
• Fridge and freezer door handles and oven door handles
• Anything else you can think of that is touched a lot by multiple people regularly around the home!

Stage 2: Organization For School Readiness

Staying organized at home is crucial to helping your child stay organized at school. There are lots of things that you can do in order to help them stay organized, but we will focus on two very important ones. School supply organization and clothes organization. 

School Supply Organization

If you haven’t already, it helps to create a special dedicated space to your children’s school supplies. Whether it is a shelf or area of a closet or even a table or office area, if you can set aside a special zone for school supply organization and storage, it will help to set your child up for success every semester. 

Make sure to have extra school supplies on hand like paper, notebooks, pens, pencils, and the like so that they are always able to do their homework or complete a class project. It never hurts to have extra glue and scissors on hand as well!

Closet Organization

Clothes are going to be a major part of your children’s lives while in school. Since they grow so fast and outgrow clothes by the hour, it helps to keep everything organized for the new school year. 

• Take everything out of their closet and sort it into piles like so:
  • Clothes that fit (for now)
  • Clothes to donate
  • Clothes to hand-me-down to a younger sibling
  • Clothes that may need to be thrown away, or set aside for repair

Once you have everything in these piles, then you can start putting the clothes back in the closet ensuring that everything has its own place and that your child knows what to do when putting them away. That should help set your school year up for success!

For The Road

Making sure your home is ready for the new school year is no small feat, but with a little preparation you can be ready for anything that comes your way this year. Contact us if you or someone you know may be in need of a residential or commercial cleaning service like ours. We can’t wait to hear from you. Give us a call or email us here. Have fun and stay safe out there!