Word Wall Centers For Any Word Wall!

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Last year my word wall began like this.  I had two smaller bulletin boards so I divided it up between the two.  It worked well and I kept it this way for two years. 

 This is what both sides looked like together.   My favorite thing about it was how calming it was. 

{to see the whole room design from this year click here}

 This year I switched to a chalky garden theme.  It’s been bright and cheerful!  This picture is  obviously from after the kids arrived.  {to see the whole chalky garden room reveal click here}

 To keep the words organized I used green ribbon as stems and kept them centered as much as possible. 

I have a love hate relationship with my word wall every year.  It’s a lot of work to set up!   This was a prep day last summer! 

and then just when you’ve got your words all set up and you are feeling accomplished for years to come, schools and districts frequently change the required high frequency words making a do over on creating it almost a yearly thing.  I don’t ever feel like I get as much out of it as I put into creating it.   Anyone feeling my pain out there?

I decided to make activities that I could have my students do to interact with the word wall week after week as we add to it. These activities won’t be worthless when my words change!  In fact the activities can grow right along with us!  Hooray!

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Word-Wall-Centers-1222134

    

Each activity has differentiated choices like types of lines students write on and number of words students need to choose from.

 
You can target the weekly sight words by placing them with your choices, or students can choose from any word on the wall.

There are 10 different activities that are ready to go!  No prepping required at all.  

Students assign words from the wall or from your weekly targeted words to the activities and then play!  So every week your words can change and the activity can spiral throughout the year!  

Activities range from  building letter by letter to writing sentences with your word wall words!

So do you change your word wall every year?  I can’t decide if I am going to change mine up for next year or not!  It will look similar, but what I am deciding is where to place it.

 I am sticking to my garden theme over all and definitely for my word wall, but I do plan to change things up in the room specifically to make both some organizational and functional changes for next year!

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11 Comments

  1. This is EXACTLY what I have been looking for! I feel the same way. I slave over my word wall each year and then don't always feel that it has been as functional as I'd like. This will definitely help! Thank you for always sharing your fabulous ideas! Purchasing! 🙂

    Bethany
    Ship Shape First Grade

    Reply

    1. Weite the word with your students and cut around it talking about tall letters short letters and hook letters so they star associating writing them below the line if hook letter to the top of the line if tall letters. Then after cut have a student place on the word wall by focusing to first letter. Make the words removable so that they can interact with it by placi g them back on the wall or take to their table to write it. I make each word a
      Different color
      Construction paper

      Reply

    2. So that and, at, another, although do not look from afar. Or you can see the differences or you can tell them that is the blue word…etc and when you play which word am I thinking? You can say it has two tall letters or it has one hook letter it is a three letter word… Etc they get four clues and write in a white board to see if they guessed. Or play which word is missing by taking one off. Etc etc. It is fun and they learn real fast. I play daily for five mins

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