Interactive Word Walls

Jen, over at The Teacher's Cauldron, and April, over at Wolfelicious are both hosting Word Wall linky parties! Does your school require you to have a word wall? Mine sure does! In the past, I had a word wall to meet the requirements of the fidelity police but never really was consistent about updating and adding new words. My kids never really used it as a resource until NOW! Well this year I love my word walls. I teach first grade and second grade, so I had to come up with a way to differentiate my words. I also had to find room to fit them all. My favorite word wall this year is my whiteboard word wall. This allows me to quickly add words and change them as needed. My polka dot word wall consists of the Dolch words for each grade and our reading adoption’s weekly high frequency words.

interactive word wall

overused words

dolch words and high frequency words from

Harcourt

If you’ve ever been to a MelissaForney writing workshop you’ll know she’s big on portable word walls, spelling helps, and thematic word walls so I have a lot of them as well. Check out Melissa Forney's website. She has tons of ideas for writing. 
I also have a word wall with synonyms for overused words. I tell my kids they are “kindergarten” words.  My kids are quick to point out when authors use “kindergarten” worlds instead of our fancy words.

Now since we’re talking about words let’s also talk about vocabulary words. In the past, I was terrible at teaching tier II words. I rarely used them. Well, this year I found Melissa at F is for First grade. I purchased her vocabulary packet that contained tier II words from the most popular children’s read alouds. I already had most of the books so I was thrilled. Check them out here!

It has dramatically changed the way I teach vocabulary. Guess what she has teamed up to giveaway a packet to one lucky winner. To enter this great giveaway follow the steps below.

This is Melissa's wall! Click on picture to take you to her post about this wonderful resource.

a Rafflecopter giveaway