INTERACTIVE ANCHOR CHARTS

   

  As I prepare for the beginning of this school year I’ve been doing a lot of research on making my life easier in the classroom. I came across many great ideas but what actually stood out was the Interactive Anchor Charts. Have you heard about them? I hadn’t! Why did this stand out? Well for one thing, my school is B-I-G about anchor charts and last year I created a few but I noticed that 1) if I wanted them pretty, then it could take me a while to create them; 2) Some anchor charts were a one-time-only kind of chart. That means that I wasted a lot of chart paper because I either threw them away at the end of the year thinking I would have to recreate them again this year, or kept them but will probably never use most of them again. So, as you can see, when I started reading about making my anchor charts interactive, I heard some kind of celestial music in my head.

The great thing about them is that you can use them once and again, you can make them part of your whole group lesson and then hang them in your classroom for reference. All you have to do is create a skeleton, a model, laminate it then add to it. Let me show you what I mean.

What you will need is:

1. Get to know your content: This is crucial because it will guide you through the process. What is in my opinion the best resource for knowing the content? The answer is Learning Standards, this will give you some idea of what you will have to teach throughout the year. You can also rely on your experienced teacher peers and Curriculum aligned teacher editions of your corresponding subjects.

2. Creativity: Add your own twist but if you can’t think of anything please google anchor charts to get a few ideas and then make them your own. Some teachers even have downloadable material ready to print and put together on TPT. I haven't found something in spanish (I'll probably create some products now that I'm inspired!).

3. Supplies: Chart Paper, permanent markers (so that your charts don’t fade), pencil and color pencils or crayons.

Color Pencils

Chart Paper

Permanent Markers

 If you strive for perfection, make sure you follow these steps:

1. Write your titles and draw your illustrations with a pencil first.

2. Trace with a permanent marker.

3. Fill out your letters and drawing.

Steps 1, 2 and 3 together

4. Separately, on blank paper or index cards, write the content as you want to present it to the class. For example if your chart is about antonyms, write words that are opposites on index cards so that students can add them to the chart during your lesson.

5. Laminate and voila! 

This is how the final product will look once I teach a lesson about Parts of a Plant, Once laminated I will add a description with dry-erase markers about the job of each part. 

Here are some examples of what I’ve done so far:

Noun Unit -BEFORE used. 

Antonyms/Antónimos

Parts of plants/Partes de las plantas

Content for parts of plants
Contenido para cartelon de partes de las plantas

Plants/Plantas

Plant Life Cycle/Ciclo de vida de las plantas

Can you feel my “aha moment” yet? I will post more pictures as I create more charts! 



Some more posters and Before and After Pictures of pre-created posters: