Word Wall Party!

 It's a Word Wall Party over at Ms. M's blog! So I'm a few days behind in blogging but thought I'd update with multiple years photos to help catch up. So the first picture is my current kindergarten word wall. Kindergarten words are on pink cards all with cut out Elkonin boxes and the 1st grade words we teach or use are in yellow. I use sentence strips to add all my students names to our Word Wall too. The words on my K word wall are large enough to read from a distance but they also have magnets on the back so when I teach the kids about how to use the word wall I teach them to go take it off the wall if they need it for writing. They love playing I Spy games on the word wall! Oh through the middle are my Beany Baby Reading strategy posters!

Next comes my second grade word walls and I'll explain the reasoning behind each.  The Word Wall withthe yellow tape (plastic gym tape) is from my first room in second grade where I taught for 2 years.  The word wall with the black tape (electrical tape) is from my return to the same room 3 years later. I had a period of 2 years out in the portables between. The word wall words I made on the computer and are on magnets so students can take them to their seats to write down. I originally only posted the 2nd grade word wall words.

Year number 5 and 6 in second grade had me move back into my original classroom which I was excited to do! The WW got a new outline in black and additional words. Now I will point out this picture looks very cluttered but it was actually quite organized. Yellow words were 2nd grade words, blue was 3rd grade words, green was science words. We are required to have a separate math word wall in our room but I did post some of our math words up on the wall in pink.

Last but not least comes my Word Wall that was my labor of love. For my first year out in the portable I had problems with my word wall. I had it high up on a wall as a Word Wall Caterpillar with the words stapled into the wall so kids could read it. problem #1 some kids wouldn't even try to look at words because they were up high and far away. #2 it was in a bad place in the room (the only place to with the space so I thought). So my second year in this portable came along and I tried to think outside the box (literally)! I had a great idea! I had purchased some cheap pocket charts from Target during their back to school sales. I cut up 3 pocket charts with 10 pockets in half and stapled them along the front wall below the dry erase board. Then I lined it with border to cover any rough edges I made. Yellow stars became my alphabet for each section. There's not rhyme or reason by the different colored words other then that's what my teammate printed for me.

Suddenly by putting my word wall in a pocket chart my two problems were solved, the kids could see the words, and they could access them and take them to their seat to write! I spent countless hours on this project putting it up and the teacher the next year in the portable loved it! I was so disappointed two years later when the room became a parent resource center and the parents who organized the room took the pockets down and threw them out!!!! the following year when teachers were back in the room they wanted the word wall and it was nowhere to be found! :-( The teacher next door tried to hot glue cork board below her dry erase board and then use thumb tacks to put her word wall words in but the problem was her kids couldn't put the words back in so she said it was more trouble than it was worth. I hope this helps give some ideas out there to different people. Please let me know if you have any questions or want to know more!

Lindsey