Using anchor charts is a great way to get students engaged in their learning and keep essential skills anchored in the classroom throughout the year. Some anchor charts are best made together with students and other anchor charts can be made ahead of time and used as success criteria for students to refer to throughout the lessons.
Here are ten of my favorite anchor charts I used in my classroom:
Math Talk
Keep this Math Talk anchor chart up all year round and refer to it while students are engaging in math talk. They can use the sentence starters to support their thinking while talking to their math partners.
What Does the Text Say?
This is another anchor chart that supports students while they’re writing. These sentence starters on this What Does the Text Say? anchor chart will help students cite evidence in their writing.
What are Your Goals?
This anchor chart can be used during the beginning of the school year or after breaks to help students think about their goals, both academic and social. You can also use the What are Your Goals board for a schoolwide impact.
What Makes You Proud?
Have students reflect on what makes them proud by using this anchor chart. Students can write what makes them proud using post-it notes and then post it on the chart for others to see.
Hand Washing
If you have a sink in your classroom, use this anchor chart! It will help students remember the importance of washing their hands and how to wash their hands.
Compare and Contrast Target Response
Using anchor chart paper to write target responses and language frames can support students’ writing. It can give students success criteria and a starting point as they complete their own writing.
Learning Goals
I always wrote learning goals on anchor charts and kept the anchor charts for each unit. At the end of the unit, I’d display all the anchor charts for students to see so they could visually understand all that they had learned.
R.A.C.E.
This writing strategy can give students a strong foundation for how to respond to a prompt. Using this anchor chart with the success criteria helped my students go back and assess their own responses.
Success Criteria
Make anchor charts using “I can” statements so students can refer to them while they’re trying to understand their progress toward mastery of a learning goal.
Intervention
Keep a special spot for anchor charts in your classroom for essential skills students are learning during intervention times. Use this spot for students to analyze their progress toward meeting the learning goal, and include a place for students to indicate their level of understanding on the board.
Anchor charts can help solidify students’ learning and create teacher clarity as you teach new skills.
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