To me, back to school means a fresh start, a new outlook, and a clean start- literally!
As I was reorganizing and cleaning up my classroom from the summer, I found that my room was overflowing with soft cello cases and I was out of surface space to store them! In years past, I've tried everything from stacking to lining them up against a wall, but there was always an issue of clutter. Plus, after a week around kids, they just kind of became a mess to look at.
So, this year, I tried something new: HANGING THEM UP!
Now, I've heard of other teachers hanging up their cases using coat racks mounted on walls, but I simply didn't have any wall space in my classroom for that. (It's a seriously clever idea, though!) So, I had to get a little creative with a way to get the cases off the floor and to get them to where I could move them to the storage space kindly given to me in the girl's locker room.
Challenge accepted.
I ended up finding and using an old metal garment rack with wheels and I purchased a pack of adjustable pant/skirt hangers from Amazon. (The kind I purchased can be found here. They're not the most durable hangers I've ever used, but I was looking for a good deal on a pack of hangers.)
I also found that the best way for the hangers to hold the weight of the cases (especially when I rolled the cases back to the storage area where they live during the year) was to attach the hangers to the bottom of the case, where the endpin is, and attach one clip to either side of the case. This seemed to be the only way for the clips to be able to hold the weight of the case in transit from my room to the storage area.
And, just like that, my cello cases were organized and could be rolled away to storage until I needed them again!
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