If you’ve been hanging out with me on the internet for any amount of time, you know that I absolutely LOVE my portable word wall. I will NEVER not have a portable word wall in my classroom. You can read all about why I think you need one in your classroom HERE! Today I want to answer two of my most frequently asked questions
What do you use to make your word wall cards?
AND
How do you display your word wall?
Ok, ready? Let’s go!
What do you use to make your word wall cards?
Cardstock or regular paper?
Regular paper. If you’re going to laminate the cards with a thinner laminating film then I would suggest using cardstock. With that being said, I personally don’t like laminated cardstock. I’m a print, laminate, cut, kinda girl and find that cardstock separates over (a short period of) time. Also, regular paper is cheaper.
Laminate? Don’t laminate?
L.A.M.I.N.A.T.E. To be honest, sometimes I just laminate things to laminate things…however, I laminate these because they need to be. My personal preference here is 3mil laminating sheets and my personal laminator. My word wall is a combination of Scotch, Nuova, Fellowes, and AmazonBasics brands and I honestly don’t notice a huge difference. I do prefer Scotch but my wallet doesn’t. They’re thicker but honestly, they’re not thick enough to justify the price difference. I’ve linked all three of the sheets as well as my laminator below. If you only have access to a school laminator with the thinner 1mil film, THAT’S TOTALLY FINE! The majority of my cards are laminated with the thicker stuff but I made most of them over five years ago when our school laminator was out of film. Some of the cards on my wall are just regular printer paper with 1mil film and they’ve held up just fine.
And for those of you wondering about sanitizing, don’t worry! I’ve wiped down the cards and they survived. Obviously, with COVID-19 and stricter sanitizing procedures, they’ll need to be cleaned more often. I would suggest cutting the cards before laminating then leaving an edge when you cut.
I also use binder rings to hold each set of cards together. After laminating, I hole punch each card, put the cards on these binder rings from Amazon, and hang the rings from a command hook.
Click the image below to shop the items I use on Amazon!
How do you set up your word wall?
I have actually had my word wall set up in two different ways. In my old classroom, I had a long thin bulletin board strip. It was basically wide enough for a tack and it hung under my whiteboard. I printed each letter of the alphabet in a font that I liked, used poster putty to hang the letters, then stuck them in the tiny wall space in between the bottom of my whiteboard and the top of my bulletin board strip. Then I stuck tacks under each letter and hung the cards from the tacks. It worked but the tacks were constantly falling out which got annoying.
My preferred display however is the setup I have in my current classroom. The word wall in my current classroom, like the one in my old room, hangs under the whiteboard at the front of the room. I evenly spaced the letters of the alphabet and placed a command hook under each one. The word cards just hang on their binder ring from the command hook and kids grab whatever set they need. It’s super simple and has worked well for my tiny humans.
If you’d like to get started with your own portable word wall, I have great news! I’ve done *most* of the work for you…you’ll still need to do the printing, laminating, and cutting BUT my Editable Word Wall has over 1500 word cards that are ready to print AND I’ve included an editable template so you can personalize your wall. Click HERE to check it out.
I hope you’ve found this helpful? Have more word wall questions? Drop them below!
*This post contains affiliate links. I will earn a small commission off purchases made through these links at no cost to you..*