Using Charts to Enhance Your Teaching

It is amazing to see how teachers use charts in the classroom to keep thinking in front of the students at all times. Charts that are made WITH students or BY students are the most valuable.  Even though the posters that can be bought are beautiful and colorful, they are not as powerful as those you make yourself with the children. 

This chart is about the features of nonfiction writing. Notice how bright and colorful it is. Notice how you can really tell that it was made by the teacher, not bought. It is also amazing how the charts were all around the classrooms of those we visited in New York. They found space to display the charts where students were able to see it easily.

 

This is a chart that the teacher and students have done together about Talk Styles. After this has been discussed and used, it is then put onto chart paper and displayed in the room. It is something that the students will use each and every day.

 



Charts in the classroom are not just for language arts. This chart is one that would be used in math. It is on Problem Solving.  What a great way to have this thinking in the room where the teacher can refer to it over and over.

 

 

This chart was posted in the hall as we walked by it. However, I am sure it was in the classroom during this unit of study. It was from a kindergarten class and a rubric of their writing.

 

 

As I said before, charts are everywhere. I think almost every classroom had charts hanging from a wire that went from one side of the room to the other. They were high, but still available to the students. Recording their thinking is so important for their learning!