What is an Anchor Chart & How Are They Helpful?

Do your children get overwhelmed when new information is being introduced to them? An anchor chart can help your child visualize what is being taught. Anchor charts can be a huge help in getting your children being able to work independently. 

Anchor Charts

Anchor charts are a great way for kids to remember important information because it is laid out before your student in a fun and colorful way. Anchor charts share the main idea of the subject or theme being taught and are a great visual reminder of what they need to know. 

What is an anchor chart?

An anchor chart is a creative tool that is used as the main point or “anchor” of a specific topic or subject that is being taught.

If you have been into an elementary classroom setting you may have seen these large, colorful posters hanging on a wall in the classroom. Classroom anchor charts are usually created on chart paper with colorful markers, doodles, drawings and lots of important information that a child would need to remember.

Some anchor charts may even have sticky notes and interactive lapbook style elements to them. Anchor charts can work as a large graphic organizer where your children can use it as an easy reference during their homeschool lessons or homework. 

Anchor Chart Examples

There are lots of amazing anchor charts to choose from. Some favorite anchor charts we have seen are ones that school teachers have created on their own. They customize them with their own doodles, drawings and important information they want their children to learn. 

The sky is the limit with the type of anchor charts that you can create.

Most Common Anchor Charts

• Steps to writing a paragraph
• How to write a friendly letter
• Reading comprehension helps
• Parts of speech
• Science vocabulary words or flow charts
• Long division anchor charts
• Poetry anchor charts

Anchor Charts

You can use anchor charts alongside a wide variety of subjects and in your homeschool lesson plans. Anchor charts can be a great teaching tool for: social studies, math, science, reading comprehension (such as nonfiction reading response questions), writing and history.

The benefits of anchor charts are endless. They convey new information in a visual way that children understand. This helps to develop comprehension skills, increase engagement, builds good readers, and helps children to learn how to work independently.

When students have the charts to look at with the main points on them, they can quickly look back to get the help they need when they are doing their school work. 

Anchor Charts for Reading

Reading anchor charts are great to print out and turn into posters for your homeschool room. This set of 30 free anchor charts are great instructional tools to help you teach a reader’s workshop, biographies, fluency, literature, and reading responses. There are lots of different colors of borders to choose from as well.

Teach your students how to summarize the texts that they are reading with these summarizing strategies reading anchor charts. These awesome anchor charts are great reading comprehension strategies for kids to learn about in a visual way.

Anchor Charts for Science

Learn how to create your own science anchor chart for your homeschool with these step-by-step instructions.

Are you looking for anchor chart ideas for science themed topic anchor charts? There are lots of fun and creative ideas and examples for a 5th grade science class.

Figurative Language Anchor Chart

Parts of a Letter Anchor Chart

Interactive anchor charts are a great tool to help your children take in new information and practice what they are learning. If you are teaching the parts of a letter your kids will enjoy moving things around on the chart to understand where the different parts of the letter go on the page. Learn why learning to write letters is important. You can also use a letter template for kids to make it easy and fun. 

Telling Time Anchor Chart

Teach your kid how to tell time with clock analag anchor charts. This is a great activity to teach digital and analog clocks, as well as telling time to the minute and hour.

Cause and Effect Anchor Chart

A cause and effect anchor chart is a great anchor chart to teach cause and effect for kids. These fun anchor charts will have your children come up with possible causes and possible effects to different situations. 

Writing Anchor Charts

Using writing anchor charts while you are teaching writing is a creative way for children to grasp the many different writing processes they need to learn. There is a lot to learn when your child is being taught how to write. An anchor chart can assist in teaching the steps of story writing.

A great anchor chart will help your children to quickly look at what they need to do next and to not get overwhelmed.

Writing Process Anchor Chart

If you are teaching writing in your homeschool, you will want to introduce your children to what the writing process is. An anchor chart for writing can help teach how to write a paragraph for kids.

There are quite a few steps to begin writing a story and a writing process anchor chart is a huge help to keep everything in order. 

Writing Checklist Anchor Chart

Learn the 6 traits of writing, how to create a writing board and a free writing checklist anchor chart for your students to use as they are going through the writing process.

Parts of a Story Anchor Chart

Teach your children the different parts of a story and story elements with cute anchor charts that walks your child through each step.

How to Write a Letter Anchor Chart

Use a letter writing anchor chart to teach how to write a friendly letter for kids. Fun letter writing anchor charts will help keep kids on track.

Middle School Anchor Charts

Science really steps it up at the middle school level with a lot of things to learn and remember. Keep track of what the changing states of matter are with this anchor chart for middle school science. 

Middle school is a great time to introduce poetry. Teach your 6th-8th graders how to read and understand poetry with a poetry anchor chart. 

If you are introducing probability in your homeschool; this introduction to probability notes and anchor charts is going to come in very handy. 

Who, What, Where, When, Why, Anchor Chart

Good readers ask questions about what they are reading. Help your kids to remember the questions they need to ask when they are reading and writing with a who, what, where, when and why anchor chart.

Math Anchor Charts

Math anchor charts can help your kids to remember important math concepts alongside your math curriculum. They can be used like cheat sheets are used. If kids forget what steps to complete in a math problem, a quick glance at the math anchor chart can help them move on without your help. Download a math key words chart here!

Place Value Anchor Chart

Are you working on place value or teaching greater than less than in your math lessons? These free place value anchor charts come in two different sizes and include: place value, standard form, expanded form, word form, comparing numbers and ordering numbers. 

Fraction Anchor Charts

Fractions can be tricky to learn, practice comparing fractions with a fraction anchor chart. Help reinforce understanding of fractions with 18 different fraction anchor charts for your homeschool classroom. You can also download some free mixed numbers worksheets.

Addition Anchor Chart

Learning doubles addition is a great way to encourage your children with memorizing math skills. If you are working on doubles addition these addition anchor charts will be a huge help. Could you use some extra practice pages for addition and subtraction? These free addition and subtraction worksheets are easy to print and use!

Subtraction Anchor Chart

Subtraction can be tricky for children to understand. Subtraction anchor charts are a useful tool to help your children remember the steps to subtraction.

In Conclusion:

Anchor charts are very popular and helpful in a classroom setting. They can also be extremely useful in your own homeschool. The next time you are working on teaching important ideas, try creating an anchor chart for it. You can even make your own anchor charts using free graphic organizer templates. Hang it up and see how quickly your child begins to learn and understand the concepts that are presented.