The Green Monster

Three years ago I received a new room assignment at my school. I went from the nicest room in the entire school (it was large, had a sink, and was located right next to the faculty room) to the smallest room in the school. Now this room wasn't always the smallest. In fact at one time it was a large room with two doors. However, the administration wanted to better utilize the school's space so they built a large wall down the middle of the room. One large room divided by giant wall = two small rooms. I don't mind having a smaller room. In fact, it means I can't have more than 16 students in my class. My main concern, upon first moving in, was the giant wall. It was covered with carpet - puck green colored carpet. It's taken me awhile to get used to it, but now I love it!!

Let me explain. Because my room is so small, I need to come up with creative ways to arrange and organize things so everything fits. I own a lot of books and needed to come up with a creative way to display them. After brainstorming with Alina, I decided to see if I could velcro containers on my Green Monster to hold books. It worked. The velcro is very, very strong. It took me a couple of days to get it all organized. My students were very excited to see my project. They kept asking if they could read the books I had stacked in the back. I told them they'd have to wait until I had all of them up.

After a couple of days, it was done and my students were SO excited to go through all the books and see what there was. The crazy thing is that these books have been in my classroom the whole year, but because they weren't displayed very well (they were on a bookshelf with only the spines showing), my students didn't seem too interested. Anyway, I now love the giant green carpet wall and it's ability to velcro things to it.

Next project - see if velcro will restrain a 7th grader to the wall.

The new containers (cardboard boxes velcroed to walls).

A close up of two boxes.

Another box.

The entire Green Monster.