Anchor Charts – Anchor chart display space can be a challenge in the classroom, especially if wall space is limited. Much of the learning that takes place in my classroom is closely and carefully linked to the graphics or posters that the students and I have developed and curated together. In fact, you can read all about the importance of anchor charts and how I made them student-centered and student-generated in a blog post I wrote here titled Let’s Talk About Anchor Charts!
Where do we put all these anchor charts? How do we make it accessible so that as teachers we can take old anchor charts to help students make connections to new learning? How do we organize our space so that the anchor graph can flexibly move from place to place based on where our students are studying? In this blog post, I’ll share with you six ways to display anchor charts. Here he is!
Anchor Charts
Posting anchor charts to a bulletin board isn’t a new idea, but I wanted to share a little tool I use to allow me to quickly and easily change the anchor charts I display on my bulletin board. See the little gold hook on the bulletin board in the image above? I’m tired of always using bulletin board pins to post my pictures. It punched holes in all my charts and I was never able to delete the charts. I solved this problem using this pin hook earlier this year. The hooks stay on the board all year round and now I can easily change my anchor chart without any problems! It’s quick and easy! Below is a link to the hook I used. You can also use these magnetic hooks if you have a magnetic whiteboard that you want to use as a display area.
Author’s Purpose Anchor Charts For Upper Elementary
Throughout this post, you’ll find several Amazon affiliate links, like the link above, which means Amazon gives me a few cents if you buy something from that link, at no extra cost to you. These little links help me keep my little corner of the internet up and running, so I can continue to share lessons, teaching ideas, and resources with you!
Tips and Tricks: When setting up your classroom at the start of the year, resist the urge to fill every bulletin board in your room with “stuff.” Leave some boards completely blank. Add hooks and use them strictly as an anchor chart display that you’ll be in and out of throughout the year.
This is a FAVORITE! I am blessed with a large whiteboard and love displaying anchor charts on it! I use magnetic curtain rods and pocket chart rings to hang my anchor charts. The best part?! I was able to move the entire graphic simply by taking a magnetic curtain rod and sticking it to another surface on the board. This is great when we need to refer to a small group table. SO EASY! It also keeps things neat and tidy. Below are some magnetic curtain rods I use in my bedroom, as well as links to pocket desk rings. If you’ve never used these curtain rods to hang your pictures before, you’ll be in anchor card heaven!
One of my favorite ways to display and save anchor charts is the perfect little IRIS coat hanger I found on Amazon this year! Teacher-friends… I fell in love with them! It matches my decor, my kids love using the bottom shelf as another work area with flexible seating, and it has CHANGED the way I access graphics that we need to revisit and refer to!
Anchor Charts: Encouraging Independent Learning And Perseverance
As you can see from the image above, I used this wooden skirt hanger to hang an anchor graphic that we don’t currently use. It’s easy to take a chart and hang it in front of my smart board, or even keep it on a hanger and hang it on my easel. I don’t even have to take the graphics off, it’s awesome! Of course, any skirt or pants hanger will do, but I love how this wooden hanger is so sturdy! You can find my graphic hanger here.
BONUS: The hanger itself serves as an additional display anchor graphic. Not only does it save your anchor chart and give you easy access to what you need, but you can also hang the chart on the front of the shelf. In the image below, you can see that I displayed our quote graphic from my dialogue and quote unit by placing a hanger at the front of the shelf. Voila! That’s perfect!
This idea is an extension of the magnetic curtain rod section. Remember, you can also use pocket chart rings and magnetic curtain rods to not only hang anchor charts, but also to hang graph paper. I like to use these medium-sized blocks of graph paper for small group tables. I can easily create quick charts or graph organizers with my guided reading or with small groups. Then I can tear it up and show it anywhere in the room. Hanging a half-sized graphic pad ensures that I won’t waste time gathering paper for my drawings. I always try to put my small group table in front of the blackboard for this reason!
Your easel is probably the most prominent display space for your anchor chart. So it will most likely be front and center in your meeting area and used every day! This is where my graphics block has always been. That’s where my students and I CREATE our graphics and posters. Sometimes we need to switch between creating and working on reading charts and writing charts.
Reasons Your Anchor Chart Won’t Work
I use large fastening clips on my easel. (You can see it in the image above.) I was able to crop the graphics to this folder clip and “save” the featured graphics in the easel. This makes it easier to switch between my poster and graphic blocks. I don’t have to spend time turning the pages of my graph book back and forth throughout the lesson!
Many people ask me where my horses come from. You can find the red horses I used from School Specialty by clicking here. It was provided by my school and had a flannel board on the back. I didn’t use a flannel board, but the other side of the easel is perfect for hanging my pocket chart. Works perfectly!
I hope this blog post gave you some great ideas on how and where you can increase the space for your anchor chart! My best tip is to scan your current classroom and take an “inventory” of the space you have. Is there a bulletin board that you really didn’t use this year that you could clear next year and upload a picture of? Do you need or use up all of the whiteboard space in your room, or is there a place you can dedicate to displaying charts? Is there a corner of your room that can fit a small clothes rack to solve your graphic storage problems? I hope you can handle viewing and saving your anchor charts with ease from now on!
Feel free to use the image below to pin it to your Pinterest board for later reference or to share with your colleagues. If you enjoyed this blog post, don’t forget to check out my flexible seating blog post too! This will show you more pictures of my room and give you a better idea of where everything is. Thanks again for visiting my blog today!
Reasons To Use Anchor Charts
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