The Math Is on the Wall - Installing the Whiteboards

This will be a series of posts to document and share how whiteboard walls have changed my teaching and student learning in my math classroom this year.

This post is about purchase and installation.

Let's Start at the Very Beginning... A Very Good Place to Start...

Back on August 26th I had an exchange with Chelsea McClellan a math teacher in Pollock Pines CA who invited me into her math classroom that has whiteboards on the walls.  I went and visited on September 7th.  The picture below shows her room.  

She painted her cabinets with whiteboard paint and added three 4x8 panel boards from Home Depot that she also painted with whiteboard paint.

I had been researching whiteboard walls for classrooms ever since I attended a CUE event in October 2016 and attended Ed Campos Jr.'s session CLICK HERE to read his blog post.

After visiting Chelsea's classes I made an appointment with my principal and we discussed how I could make this happen in my classroom.  There were a few stipulations that I needed to follow:

• The whiteboards had to be temporary (meaning they can be easily taken down if I move rooms)
• No painting of the desks with whiteboard paint - (again too permanent and I get that!)

Pretty simple and easy to follow.  I purchased four 4x8 panel boards from Home Depot (click here).  I had three of the boards cut in half - 4ft. x 4ft. and one of the boards was cut into fourths - 2ft. x 4ft.
My after school STEM club installed the whiteboards:

• They put duct tape around the edges of the boards
• Used 16lb Velcro to put on the walls (click here) 

I'll be adding one more board cut into thirds against my cupboards opposite this picture before we go back after winter break.