Recent Math Vocabulary Word Wall Feedback

While replying to feedback on TPT recently, I was struck by a few math word wall reviews and wanted to share them with you: 

“This package was FANTASTIC! My only regret is that I don't have more wall space! My walls have become a resource for my students. And we know that students' visual memories of these important math concepts each time they look up and view them! The resources were very clear - great font. Absolutely love this resource!” 

– Michelle A, Grades 6-9 {MIDDLE SCHOOL and ALGEBRA} Math Word Wall Bundle 

“This is such a great resource! My students loved being able to reference things using this awesome word wall! Highly recommend!” 

– Cajun Kinder Queen, 5th Grade Math Word Wall 

“This is so beautifully created. It makes the math learning wall more clear. Thank you.” 

– Vivian T, Grades 2-5 Math Word Wall Bundle 

“Great visuals which really helped students remember and understand vocabulary.” 

– Hillary H, 7th Grade Math Word Wall 

“Absolutely fantastic - clear, and readable text that students readily refer to!” 

– Carolyn P, Grades 2-5 Math Word Wall Bundle 

“My students and I love this resource. It stays up year round with my other anchor charts for the students to reference. This is highly recommended if you teach a financial literacy class.” 

– Patty P, Financial Literacy Word Wall

"What a clean presentation to hang up in a classroom. I absolutely love this resource, it is just what I was looking for in my middle school math room." 

– Sharon L., 6th Grade Math Word Wall

"This is the best thing since sliced bread! I am on such a non-existing budget this year. This allowed me to make a magnificent Word Wall for my Algebra I students efficiently and effectively. It printed very easily and students can easily refer back to it as needed. It has all the topics of conversation we have had/are having/and will have throughout the semester. I love the various options to print in color or black and white and I LOVE the virtual Word Wall feature. This allowed me to post it to my Google Classroom for my students to refer back to if they are either not here or just prefer computer learning. I like being able to offer them both options. I also have the Financial Literacy Word Wall and love it just as much." 

– Brittney A., Algebra Word Wall

You can find math word walls for 2nd grade, 3rd grade, 4th grade, 5th grade, 6th grade, 7th grade, 8th grade, algebra, geometry and algebra 2 on TPT here:

BROWSE MATH WORD WALLS

Each comes in printable color, printable black & white, interactive digital in Google Slides and includes Spanish vocabulary.

6th Grade Math Word Wall

Are you looking for a way to support your 6th grade math students? In this post are just some of the visual 6th grade math vocabulary references included in a 6th grade math word wall. The math word wall has grown a lot over the years as I have added teacher requests, and now includes a printable color version, a printable black & white version, an interactive digital version in Google Slides, and printable Spanish vocabulary.

How to Eliminate Glare on a Laminated Classroom Word Wall

That glare from a shiny, laminated word wall is killer. Between the florescent lights and the windows, there's always somewhere in the room where the glare coming off the lamination blocks sight of the references underneath it.

Financial Literacy Word Wall

I love teaching teens how to build their financial literacy. There's something so empowering about knowing how to work with percentages, how to budget and what all that fancy-sounding financial language means. 

Teaching teens about personal finance was even empowering to me. It made me feel I was giving my students the tools they needed to avoid being taken advantage of financially, which can happen to any of us.

Math Classroom Word Wall Setup Teacher Photos

In this post are a ton of math classroom word wall teacher photos. Thank you so, so, so much for sending these incredible photos of your math word walls and math classroom setups to me. I have enjoyed looking at each one and am thankful you took the time out of your busy days to send the photos, and have allowed me to share them in this post. Above is a collage Mr. Morrone sent of his math word wall.

Ms. Malm's geometry word wall

Middle School Math Word Wall Ideas

You middle school teachers-- hats off to you. My one year in middle school felt like an episode of the Twilight Zone. The math was familiar, but everything else was... different. Kids arguing about stolen pencils, interventions because one student said another student's boot liners were generic, fielding "he's looking at me" daily. I was pausing class every 10 minutes to catch one confused kid up to speed while another was complaining he was bored. All in all, it was a miserably eye-opening experience for me, and I RAN back to high school when the year was over. My brother teaches middle school math. I don't know how he does it.

Ms. Baily's middle school math word wall

This was a year before I made the decision to decorate my classroom with math word walls. Looking back, I know they would have helped curb some of the interruptions and boost the confidence of the kids who felt confused. 

Rhonda's 6th grade math word wall

Some time after sharing photos of my my math word walls on social media, a teacher emailed asking if I could make her an 8th grade math word wall. Soon after, another teacher asked for one for 7th grade, then 6th grade, then even 5th grade. 

In this post I want to show photos of the word walls I have made for you marvelous middle school teachers with the most impossible jobs in teaching! 

6th grade math word wall - digital version

UPDATE: All math word walls in this post are now also available as no-prep digital math word walls, built in Google Slides. The digital versions are completely interactive and are linked inside the printable PDFs so that you have access to both the printable and digital versions.

6th grade math word wall - digital version

Clicking on the images brings up larger versions of the images. Students then click the "back to class" button to go back to the main "classroom". The digital versions are nice references for students working at home and a support for parents. I wrote a post explaining how to share the digital word walls with students here.

Now I'd like to show you some of the pieces of the word walls I have made for middle school math. The photos in this post show the black & white word walls that I colored by hand. Since taking these photos, I have added color versions to each of the word walls.

8th Grade Math Word Wall

I made this 8th grade math word wall with thoughts of my former 8th graders in mind. These are the references I would hang on my walls were it possible to go back in time for a do-over. Above are references for systems of equations with proportional and not proportional shown in context. 

Scatter plots even come up in our 10th grade state exit exam here in Massachusetts. This reference shows a positive correlation, outlier, cluster and line of fit. I just added Spanish translations of the vocabulary words that can be hung alongside their English counterparts.

Here is a reference section for function vs. not a function.

Geometric transformations.

And triangle sums.

7th Grade Math Word Wall

There are way more representations of slope that I had ever imagined before making this word wall for 7th grade! Constant of proportionality, unit rate, scale factor... Wowza!

Here is a reference for scale factor.

And integers. 

And Geometry! The colorful poster at the bottom is a reference for angle types. This word wall has had its vocabulary translated into Spanish as well.

6th Grade Math Word Wall

Data, data, data! Topics like box plot, histogram, mean median, mode, and range are all topics covered in this 6th grade math word wall.

Here is a box and whiskers reference.

Multiplying and dividing fractions.

And nets. In 6th grade I was happily practicing my long division and doodling on my worksheets. That was the 1980s. Things have changed a lot since then!

Here is a video showing a little of the 6th grade word wall's digital version.

5th Grade Math Word Wall

Though not for middle school topics, the references in this 5th grade math word wall may help some students link back to previous learning. Above are references for graphing with additive and multiplicative patterns.

In my algebra 2 classroom we have algebra 1 references that we refer to pretty regularly so I know how many kids we see can be a year or two behind. 

References for improper and proper fractions.

Adding fractions. 

And quadrilaterals.


All of the word wall references in this post (and a lot more) are included in this big Math Word Wall bundle. Every word wall inside comes in color, black and white and interactive digital in Google Slides. All updates are always free.


I also put together smaller 4-grade bundles that can be mixed and matched, including these for grades 5-8 and grades 6-9. 

Each word wall is also available individually.

5 Ways Math Word Walls Have Changed My Teaching

Adding a math word wall to my classroom completely changed my teaching. From easily accessible reminders, to increased student independence, to making the room an inviting place to learn, there were so many positives.

In this post, I want to highlight 5 ways adding a math word wall improved my classroom, made it easier for me to teach, and made concepts and vocabulary easier to access for my students. 

(part of an algebra word wall)

I'll also include photos of the word walls I've made for grades 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8, algebra, geometry and algebra 2.

(part of a 4th grade math word wall)

Below are the five main differences I saw when adding a visual math word wall to my classroom.

(part of a 5th grade math word wall)

Reason #1: Greater student independence

You're at the board in the middle of an amazing lesson when a hand goes up. The good thing? It's not to go to the bathroom. The bad? It is about a concept not at all related to your awesome lesson. 

(part of a 6th grade math word wall)

Students are forever asking questions that have nothing to do with what is currently happening. A lot of times these questions are long-held misconceptions or misunderstandings. Magic happens when those confusions are ironed out. Those are the "lightbulb moments" we all live for as teachers. 

Pythagorean Theorem

With references on the walls, students can independently access the information that is clogging up their thinking so that they can get back to the current topic. The boost in confidence this gives students is reason enough for a word wall. 

(part of a 7th grade math word wall)

Order of Operations Mobile

Some ideas seem so simple but for some reason have details that take forever to work out. This PEMDAS mobile was one of those ideas. 

UPDATE! There are now letters included to make a GEMDAS, GEMS, GEMA, BIMDAS or BEMDAS mobile instead. 

Spanish Math Word Walls

By August 2021, the printable versions of every math word wall will be updated to include Spanish vocabulary. Above is a photo of how the Spanish math words look alongside their English counterparts.

UPDATE: Every math word wall now includes printable Spanish vocabulary. 

Math Word Wall Frequently Asked Questions

In this post I'll answer some frequently asked questions about math word walls. 

Digital Math Word Walls

Over the years, I have written a lot about math word walls. In this post, I want to share the digital updates every one of my word walls has recently gotten.

High School Math Word Wall Ideas

When I taught math in Boston my classroom was next to a geometry teacher who had a math word wall that spread just about floor to ceiling. At the time I thought it was a bit extreme. I mean, aren't high school kids a little old for so many visuals? Did they really need all that?

part of an algebra word wall

Well, my teacher neighbor went on to become Teacher of the Year and I went on to realize how powerful math word walls are - especially those that show math vocabulary in context.

free math word wall for 3-D shapes

Before landing that first full-time teaching job, I was a substitute teacher for a year. I'll never forget a job I took in a kindergarten class. The letter of the day was K. Some kids could write "kite", "kat" (English is so weird), while other kids couldn't even write a K. 

part of an algebra word wall

The discrepancy in abilities I saw that day in kids so young completely blew my mind. If there was such a large span of abilities in five year olds, what about in 15, 16, 17, 18 year olds? And how would I reach them?

4 Important Things to Include on an Algebra 2 Word Wall

The first thing I hear when telling people I teach Algebra 2 is, "Whoa, that must be hard!", or something along these lines. If you teach high school, you know that high school kids are just little kids in big bodies who usually have even bigger emotions. But I have found that they sometimes like to hide these emotions deep, deep down and that this is especially true in math.

What I want to tell people when they ask what I do for a living is "boost kids' feelings towards Math". Can I make that an official title? All jokes aside, I take this part of my job very seriously. Word walls in my classroom are an essential extension of my teaching. Kids say the darndest things! They also ask the most random questions. And when they do, I am able to quickly point at a reference on our math word wall.