What should I put on the walls?
Setting up your classroom means thinking about all of the physical things that your students need: desks, books, materials, etc. But it also means thinking about the space that surrounds you. Think about how you want students to use the walls of your classroom. Do you want to keep them bare so that students have room to think? Do you want to put up pictures that provoke certain emotions? Are you planning on plastering them with anchor charts or student work? There are lots of different ways to decorate the walls of a classroom. No matter what you end up doing, try to be purposeful about the things you put on your walls.
- 2 min
Make Your Walls a Vehicle for Learning
Watch this video on posting student work and information for students to learn from. Think about how you could adapt this approach for use in your own classroom.
- 5 min
Thinking About Adding Student Art to Your Walls?
Watch this video about turning a school into a living museum. How could you turn your classroom into a living museum? What would be the benefits?
“It's important to me that students have their learning reverberated back to them. Therefore, the way I set up my class gives students the chance to see their thinking made public on these whiteboard doors and in their work on the walls or in these Humans of 506 memes.”
— Sarah Brown Wessling, Tch Laureate Emeritus
— Sarah Brown Wessling, Tch Laureate Emeritus
Adding helpful tools to your walls is a great way to facilitate independent learning. After making charts as a class, post them on the wall so students can refer back to them as needed. Check out our Pinterest board of anchor charts for inspiration
Additional Resources
These videos will give you more ideas of charts that can be made with students, then posted on classroom walls.
Back-to-School Night
At the beginning of the year, teachers sometimes feel pressured to fill up their walls in preparation for Back-to-School Night. Check out these blogs for ideas on how to prepare for Back-to-School Night, both on the walls and within them:
