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Sunday, May 29, 2011

Word Wall Linky Party

One of may favorite things in my class room is my word wall. I've seen many kinds of words walls and while I love most of them, I just ADORE mine. Partly because I think it is brilliant that I have multiple grade levels on one wall. :) I do this by color coding the words. Take a look:
I start the year with an ocean them and so I used two kinds of construction paper as my ocean background. I had them laminated and alternated them to make a contrast. I feel this makes it easier for my students to identify the sections of the words. The letters are just Trend letter that have been laminated. The ocean cut outs come from DJ Inkers Ocean Bulletin Board set. As I've mentioned in previous posts, most of my room is color coded, red for Kindergarten, blue for 1st grade. At first I thought the 1st grade words would get lost in all the blue green of the background but this color blue has enough contrast they seem to pop. The red stands out a lot, but that is also good for my Kinder Kids who are experiencing the word wall for the first time.

I start the year with their names and add their HFW weekly. I do want to mention that I do not add the words until the end of the week. We first study our words and keep them in our class fish. (see picture below)
I am sure you have noticed that all of our words are laminated. Long ago, I used to write the words on sentence strips and put those on my word walls. Well, that was when I had a much larger room and had much more space for my word wall.
Here is a picture of the classroom I had 5 years ago in FL and taught first grade. If you look close the word wall is on the far left on yellow butcher paper.
One things I did not like about that system was that I always made a new set of words yearly. I always felt wasteful at the end of the year trashing those words. Also, at times I even got behind on adding the words to my word wall... yikes. I always felt like I was letting my students down because they could not depend on me being consistent with the weekly words. With this system they are already done. (More on that in a bit)

When I moved into my current space, I wanted to revamp my word wall system and also had to figure out a condensed version of a word wall. That is when I thought of this:
I thought to my self, if I can get all the words in on a sheet of construction paper this might actually work. Then came the task of making words large enough for students to see from their desk, but small enough to fit in the construction size paper. At first I felt that the black Trend letter were too large, but they seem work now. I only struggle with the very popular letters like  a, m, s and t. Then I get creative. :)

I keep all my words sorted by week. I write the theme and week they belong to right in the front of the envelope, ie: Theme 1 week1, in envelops. These envelops are kept in a box.This is my "Word Wall Words Box." Every Monday I just go in to my box and pull out the corresponding envelope. Then that envelope gets sorted to the back of the box. Side note: I do have two different kinds of envelopes to distinguish between Kinder and first. I wish I had a picture of this for you, but I did not have the foresight to take one before I packed everything up. :(

All I have to do as I take down my word wall, is to put the words in the right envelope. One of the tasks I am assigning myself this summer is to write all the words on the front of the envelopes so that I do not have to refer to my long term plans to know which words go in which envelope.

There are several types of words walls I like but can't do. First, it the interactive word walls.
These word walls are low enough for students to go get words from the wall and take them back to their seats, write the word and then take it back to the wall. I can't do this because my board is too high for my students. However I have done a Fancy Word interactive board.
I adore this little project because I  love seeing the students getting out of their seats and actively learning new words, as they use the board.

I've also seen word walls that start out with ALL the words on the wall in one color. Once the students learn the words the teacher changes out that word for the same word in a different color. This is a good word wall for rooms with a lot of differentiation going on. More advanced students can also use the word wall and don't have to rely on the pacing of the class. I liked this idea a lot at first, but it would not work for my word wall. I think if I add another color to the wall it would get overwhelming. Unfortunately I could not find a picture of this kind of word wall

I hope this helped you, in one way or another. I always say, even if you have a bad example, you have learned what you DON'T want to do.

Here I go, my first linky part. Here is your bit. What kind word wall do you have in your room?





23 comments:

  1. Love your word wall! I need to sort my words at the end of the year too and decided to put a number on the back of each word to tell me which list it is in (we use Dolch words). You could do the same thing with your words - just number them with the number of the week. It might save you the time of writing the words on the envelopes. I have a couple of my kiddos sort the words into baggies at the end of the year and then they are ready to go the next year. Just thought I would share what works for me.

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  2. That is BRILLIANT! Thanks for sharing. I will be doing that.

    Ms. M
    Ms.M's Blog
    A Teacher's Plan

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  3. Or you could label like we label our math series lessons... For theme 1 week 1 you would label 1.1 and for theme 1 week 2 you would label 1.2, etc. Just an idea to keep with your already labeled envelopes.

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  4. Thanks for posting your own word wall! I'll have a 1/2 split class in the fall, and I was thinking about how I'll do my word wall. I had thought about color-coding, so I am super happy to read that you do that! You inspired me. :)

    Magnificent Multiagers!

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  5. Thank you, I am glad you were able to get something from my post.

    Ms. M
    Ms.M's Blog
    A Teacher's Plan

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  6. This is an excellent blob post/link party!!

    I'm new to the teacher blogging world, I'm actually just a first year teacher. My word wall was a complete mess this year. I relate a lot to what you said about your first word wall in Florida.

    I will be re-doing my word wall, and am thinking about what to do with the current words on my wall, since I know I'm not going to use them next year.

    Again, thanks!!!

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  7. I love your word wall! I put my dolch words in ABC order in baggies so it is easy for me to pull the words that I need quickly. Then my students sort them for me whenever they get messed up. I have a word wall helper and she keeps everything organized. (May wall is magnetic across the bottom of my board, so it moves sometimes! ) lol

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  8. Fantastic layout for your word wall which has given me some ideas for something I can do in my room! Great blog, I am glad I found you!

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  9. What great ideas! Thanks for sharing!
    ~Maggie

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  10. I really like your Fancy Word wall idea--I would join your linky party and post my word wall but I have already taken it down this year as I am moving classrooms. And really it's something I try to make better every year. I have been thinking of redoing my organization of my words, while they are stored. In my new room I want to try and have something like the fancy words too. Thanks for sharing your ideas.
    -Stacee

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  11. I have 3 word walls.

    Wall 1: SIGHT WORDS-white index cards with blue consonants and red vowels for most kids. (each child has their own baggie of words and we add 5 words on *most Mondays on full size index cards)***I have a differentiated group with colored index cards for "kindergarten" level words.

    Wall 2: VOCABULARY WORDS-These words are just plain and we add 5 a week (week 1- words are posted on a chart with a visual for each word, week 2-words are posted with visuals, but MUCH smaller, and week 3 words are added without visuals to a vocabulary word wall)

    Wall 3: DICTIONARY WORDS-I have a box of illustrated words and on the back there are 5 illustrated words that define the word on the front. I both 2 sets of these words and have them "poked" between the ceiling tile frames (one corner is held by a push pin). This has really been utilized during journal time).

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  12. WOW, I love that you have 3 word walls. I with I had that much space. Thanks for sharing.

    Ms. M
    Ms.M's Blog
    A Teacher's Plan

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  13. I love this post! I am always looking for new ideas to change up my word walls... I love the idea of an interactive word wall! Definitely gave me some new ideas! Thanks for sharing :)

    Amy Lemons
    Step into 2nd Grade
    http://stepintosecondgrade.blogspot.com

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  14. Thanks for hosting this word wall Linky Party, great idea! I use Rainbow Words so my words are color coded. At the end of the year I put them in sandwich size ziploc bags by color and then into hanging file folders for quick access next year.
    Cheers!

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  15. I am so happy to participate in your little party! I know we all learn when we all participate and share. Thank you for the opportunity, and by the way...that fancy word wall is an excellent idea!
    Maggie

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  16. I just started a "Lots Of Linkies" Linky party to help keep track of Linky parties all over Blogland. You are welcome to link yours up to it.

    Denise
    Yearn to Learn Blog

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  17. I just got Rainbow Words - hoping that will help my students learn all their sight words easier! Thanks for all the ideas! :)

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  18. Thanks for sharing! I am working on my word wall. What did you put the words on? Construction paper? Do you have a template that you used? If so, can you email to me donnalovesherbert@gmail.com???

    Thank you so much

    Donna

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  19. Dratchford, the words were just printed on regular colored paper. I don't have a template and I am actually having a hard time because I have to print a second set and I am going to have to type it all up again. :( If I get it all done, I will put up what I make.

    Ms. M

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  20. Thanks Ms. M,

    I found a cute template on Mrs. Willis Kindergarten Blog. I am going to use that one and combine both ideas into a new one. :)

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  21. Just today I was looking for some ideas about wall words, not popular in Italian classrooms, and I found your blog...I will take some idea, but I need to come back in order to read everything slowly...thanks for sharing!
    Ciao dal sud Italia

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