Getting the Classroom Back to School Reading {Word Wall}

Hey there again!  I am back with a new quick idea for your back to school classroom!  Today I wanted to share with you my whiteboard word wall!  You know how blessed you when you inherit a classroom that is teacher-ready?!  Well, my classroom already had the taped out word wall so my hard was already over 😉 

If you are interested in doing a whiteboard word wall you can measure and tape it out with black electrical tape- yes this is the hard part!


This year I decided to update my border and word wall letters!  A quick tip I have for attaching your border to your whiteboard would be to use a hot glue gun!  They are fabulous!  The border will stick with no “bowing.”  Also, when you are ready to take it down it will pull right off…not leaving a sticky residue like tape does!

  This year I went with a chalkboard theme for my word wall letters!  I also hot glued them to the board because I didn’t want to spend hours next time peeling off tape 🙁 For the words on my word wall I simply write the word with my dry-erase marker.  I know most do cards, but I have found that I can get the words in a largest format by just writing them!

The word wall labels are a free download!  You can click below to grab those!

If you have additional questions on my whiteboard wall wall please email me or comment below!  Also, view my previous back to school post below! 🙂

21 Comments

  1. I did the electrical tape thing last year and had to take it down for summer construction! I'm not looking forward to having to do it again! Loving all of these great ideas, thank you!
    -Andrea

  3. Three years ago I switched my Word Wall from a large bulletin board to a smaller white board. The benefit: kiddos could better reach all the words and even remove them, taking them to their seat or a center as needed.

    The first year I measured (3 rows/8 columns) and identified the sections by yarn pulled taunt and stapled on the outside edges of the white board and covered by bulletin board border. The second year I tried electrical tape. Worked well until I was moved to a new classroom at the end of the year and had to remove it! UGH! It was INSANE! I will never use electrical tape again! So this year, in my new classroom, I tried painter's tape. So far, so good. No yucky reside lurking behind when I needed to remove a piece of the tape.

    I really like your ABC labels. They look great against the whiteboard with black tape dividers!

  5. Hi Tara,
    I've had my word wall like this for the past 2 years and the students love it because it is so big, they refer to it constantly! The only difference about mine is that I make the vowels a different color (I did red last year) so that they stand out and students recognize that the vowels are the most important letters. Thanks for sharing your ideas, I always look forward to reading your blog posts!! 🙂

  7. I have NO wall space…. and NO white board space… lol. I have NO clue how i'm going to do my word wall.. I may just have ot use my Spelling Journals and make sure to let my admin know that the kids have personal word walls in their desks. lol
    ♥ Jen
    Teacher by the Beach

  8. Can I ask you how you use word walls? Which words are you writing on it and how do the children use them? I will be a teacher next year in Germany and I love reading the blog to get many ideas and input… Thank you

    1. Janine, I only write our sight words that we cover throughout the year. I know others include student names and math vocabulary. Mine is a limited on space so that is why I just do sight words 🙂

      Tara

  10. This is fabulous! Hot glue doesn't melt the whiteboard? Have you also tried hot glue on walls, wooden furniture, and plastic furniture? I might go hot glue crazy and put all my labels up with hot glue instead of tape, so it does't leave the sticky residue at the end of the year.

  11. Hi Tara,

    I cannot seem to find these word wall labels. Can you please point me in the right direction? I love your stuff!

    Thanks,

  12. I would love these for my room and I am having trouble finding them as well. I sent you an email about it since I saw your response from another post.

  13. Hi I really love your idea of writing words for word wall.
    I am planning to hot glue my border on white board. Did you first put a painters tape border on white board and on top u hot glued it or just hot glued it with no tape.
    And after u hot glued it without tape u could take it off without residue?

Leave a Reply