iPod Touches...Snug and Safe

I recently consolidated my classroom budget to augment the technology I have available for my students - especially on those "free days" mentioned in one of my posts earlier this school year.  I had hoped to purchase four iPod touches but, alas, I learned my district requires that you purchase Apple Care for each, so I was only able to get three - but I'll take them.

Once they arrived, I knew I didn't want to spend the money on sturdy cases for all three of them (besides, my budget was wiped out and I've already spent WAY more out of my own pocket this year than I ever have in years past).  I had an idea rolling around in my head about using a piece of Styrofoam packaging, some soft packing foam, or something similar to create a safe storage space for these little delicate devices.  I knew I would be storing them in a locked drawer in my classroom, and I also knew if I didn't do something, they'd start sliding around in there every time I opened the drawer - possibly scratching them or worse, one sliding under something else so I couldn't find it right away.

Lo and behold, I was entering Costco one Sunday afternoon when there, sitting by itself in an otherwise empty shopping cart, was a piece of that newer packaging foam.  You know - it's kind of a cross between Styrofoam and soft bedding foam.  It was the perfect size (about 14 inches long, six inches wide, and about four inches deep) so I snatched it up and dropped it into my own cart.  My favorite price for projects such as these - FREE!

I was a little concerned about cutting this stuff to make it right for my iPod storage purposes; but, luckily when I started to have at it, I discovered I didn't have to do much.  The new iPod touches are so thin and this stuff has enough give, all I had to do was cut a slit the size of the iPods about two inches deep into the foam.  It worked!

My 3 iPod touches safely stored in their drawer (ignore the other clutter in there!)


The iPods fit very snugly inside the foam and are easy to retrieve when I need them.  As you can see by the photo, I could add several more to my classroom set and still have plenty of room in this one piece of foam to store them.

Until next week...