Chicka, Chicka, Word Wall

As a second year teacher, I feel like I have much better ideas than I had the first year.  My first year, I made a word wall that was pieces of paper stapled to the wall.  It was all great until I realized that I wouldn't be able to fit all of my words so I had to rearrange the WHOLE thing.  Talk about a nightmare!  Imagine pulling 200 staples out of the wall just to have to redo them.

This year, I decided I wanted to make my word wall out of cork board.  I found these square cork boards at Hobby Lobby.  Bonus deal: I caught it on a day that cork boards were on sale, 30% off!  They were still kind of pricy so I plan to leave the wall up until I absolutely HAVE to take it down. 

I hung all of the cork boards and alphabet but then decided it looked a little plain still.  That's when I decided to make it a Chicka Chicka Word Wall based on the Chicka Chicka Boom Boom stories.  I made my coconut tree in the corner out of paper and slapped some cut-out letters all over the place like they were climbing up and falling down the tree. 

I absolutely love how the wall turned out.  Another bonus, it makes the whole classroom a little warmer as the cork board is a nice brown color.

Note:  When I first hung the cork boards, I used the command strips that were included.  The unfortunate thing with that was the first week of school was so hot and humid that the entire wall fell down.  I learned that I had to staple gun them to the wall.