Word Wall

Nowadays, every teacher has to have an active word wall in their classroom. For those of you who might not know what a word wall is, it is a collection of vocabulary words which are displayed in large visible letters on a wall, bulletin board, or other display surface in a classroom. An Active Word Wall means words displayed are current with the lesson and tied to the current teachings. This visual helps all students, but especially students in which English is their second language. In a music classroom, it is important to show the music symbol with the word and definition. 

With your active word wall, you can point to a word or symbol when addressing it in a lesson. Since your active word wall needs to be displayed in a prominent location where your students can see it, it should enhance the look of your rehearsal space. I like my room to have a cohesive look. I like all the bulletin boards and decorations to have the same look and color scheme. At Tennyson, our school colors are blue and gold and our mascot is the Texan (a cowboy on a bronco). I've incorporated the school color/theme into my band hall. My decorations have that Western feel with a pinch of glam - wood, shiplap, chevrons, fonts with that Western/southern feel, blue, gold and white colors. 

I haven't fully embraced the idea of an active word wall until now. Our band hall is very small and has limited wall space. We also teach in the cafeteria and a foyer by the front of the school where the elevator is. It's a challenge to also have word walls in those spaces. However, I will be creative this year and make it work. I think I wasn't fully on board with having word walls in our rehearsal spaces because I didn't have any posters I wanted to post. You can buy some on TeachersPayTeachers, but none of the designs match the look I want. I made some words last year, but made them very quickly and didn't include the music symbols. I DID make some for the posture positions last summer that I liked and stayed posted on a bulletin board in the band hall this past school year.

Today, I created a set that I am proud of that match the other decorations in our band hall. I grouped them and slightly changed the colors according to the groupings. I created them in canva (canva.com), so I can add to them as I need to. Here is a glimpse of what they look like:

This is one of the grouping posters. I'll post the individual dynamic posters with this one. Here is one of the individual dynamic posters:

As you can see, they have the same look. I will print three sets of them all in color and then laminate  them all so they will last. I know I will create more advanced ones to use for the Advanced bands. 

I have saved the ones I've completed so far in a folder in both my school and personal google drives. You can access them here (click on "here" to access the link).

Has this been helpful to you? If so, please leave me a comment. Thanks so much for stopping by!