You finally have your own classroom!!! No more shuffling around on a cart, lugging your whole life with you every period of the day… no more “borrowing” other teachers’ classrooms and hoping you left them as neat as you found them.

Now What

Now, you’re ready to make this new space work for you. One of the biggest challenges to classroom set up is that projector screen. It’s no one’s fault. It was hung uniformly, matching all of the other classrooms… probably with an antique overhead projector and transparencies in mind. More importantly though, moving it is not topping anyone’s to do list… there are much bigger fish to fry- from a property services standpoint. But, in your world- a thoughtfully place projector screen could make ALL the difference. It did for me! When I added this DIY projector screen to my classroom, things changed- and FAST! No more distractions for kids working on the class warm up. The problem wasn’t just that occasionally a classmate would block someone’s view while walking to their seat- it was that staring at the warm up on the screen in the front of the room at the start of class, provided an unintentional “social check in” for my easily distracted kids.

It didn’t matter if I moved their seats- it didn’t help them to “pay attention”… they were! But- every minute or so one of their besties walked right into their line of sight. That’s REALLY HARD for a middle schooler to ignore. For weeks I had joked with Distracted Danny that if he could pick where the screen went it would be better for everyone. Every couple of days he’d remind me, “you know, if you just move it up high and in the corner, we’ll all be able to see it better…” He was right. But I would never get anyone to hang a screen in the corner!

So What

So, I tried a white sheet. I tried chart paper. I tried a regular sized piece of foam board… and finally this. An extra large piece of foam board from the Custom Framing department at Michael’s Crafts. I stuck some Command strip hooks on the back of it and used string to tie it to the ceiling tile spacers in my classroom. About $10 and 10 minutes to make a significant impact on student learning.