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

Mother's Day FREEBIE

Where has the month gone?  I'm linking up at Teaching My 3 for a teacher appreciation linky party. Since Mother's Day is right around the corner, we've been super busy making our Mother's Day presents.  It's always hard to pick which one to choose. This year I decided on silhouettes and hand print art. I also made some free Mother’s Day interview questions and more! You can grab a copy here ! Lately, I've been thinking about Father's Day and how I usually don't do much with this day. I've definitely been guilty of skipping it all together.  I do think it’s just as important to honor fathers so I've created a Father's Day packet as well. 


BE SURE TO CHECK MY BLOG ON MAY 7TH! I WILL BE HAVING A HUGE TEACHER APPRECIATION GIVEAWAY!

CLICK ON PICTURE FOR MORE FREEBIES!

Ending the Year with a BANG!

I love the end of the year. It gets a little crazy but we still have fun. When it gets down to 20 days, I make a cute bulletin board titled, "Let's End this Year with a BANG". For this board, I use 20 brightly colored balloons. I have different activities or prizes in each balloon. Now since I would rather not have field day on a Monday, I usually rig the balloons. To pull this off, I have a number inside the balloon. Once a balloon is popped, I look on my list and find out which prize was won. Technically, I have it planned for the entire twenty days. The kids have never caught on. SHHH! It's my little secret.
Here are some ideas

You can grab a copy here!

What fun things will you be doing to celebrate the end of the year? Leave me a comment and you might win any packet from my tpt store!
If you need anymore ideas you should check out Tales from Outside the Classroom , All Students Can Shine, or 3 Teacher Chicks. These blogs are having  End of the Year linky parties.