What is on your wall?

I visit many classrooms everyday and I believe the most under utilized part of the room is the classroom walls. Are the walls in your classroom merely decorations or are they learning opportunities?  Are your walls covered with a theme of decorations bought by you?  Are the walls covered with student artwork, but the artwork is not in anyway a reflection of the current content study?  Why?  Have your walls become vertical hoarder spaces with pictures and posters that reflect years gone by?

We have to take a look at this space.  We need to use the space to provide learning opportunities and tools that our students can daily.  Do you have a word wall?  Is it a Reading word wall?  This too needs to be re-thought!  Word walls should be visual reminders of learned vocabulary from each content area, there should be Science, Math, Social Studies, Health, Technology and current event words that the students have learned.  By placing all of these words on the wall, we are encouraging their use in conversation.  Repeated use of the words make them part of the student vocabulary on a daily basis, not to mention the positive exposure to these words by students who are learning the language (ELL).

Classroom walls should not be unorganized collections of random materials, they should be organized visual resources that encourage development of vocabulary and promote student engagement and communication.

Check this out...this looks great, don't get me wrong but what educational value does this have?  Notice that almost all of it is not produced by the student...there is no connection between this and the student!

What about this wall?  It busy but it is student friendly. It is aimed at a unit of study.

 Notice this anchor chart....Kindergarten...Teacher and Student cooperative effort.  The students demonstrate meaning through their illustrations!

Here is a clear word wall...I might have made the words larger and easier to read...but notice that it helps develop alphabetical order.

So think about it...are the walls in your classroom additional tools to promote student learning? Are the students looking around your room to get helpful clues to further develop their vocabulary and communication skills?

Are you a Pinterest fan...go check out all of the anchor charts there....you will find amazing ideas.

  

Here is a link to a quick read article about anchor charts too....http://www.vriuvm.org/uncategorized/dropping-anchors-in-our-classrooms/

Let me know your thought!

Happy Teaching,

Wendy