5th grade teachers, how do you implement a word wall into your studies. I know that, in our school, we are required to use one, but I'm unsure of how to get started and exactly how to use it with my students. Should I focus on spelling words or on subject-specific vocabulary. What is best for this age level?
I'll be in 5th next year and I am going to have the "100 most misspelled words" and "no excuses words" I am thinking about having them keep a REALLY simple paper binder that they will add their weekly spelling lists to. Kind of like a dictionary but instead of being in alphabetical order the words will be grouped by the "theme" of each weeks spelling rule. So essentailly by the end of the year there would be approximately 40 pages. I don't know how else to deal with so many words.
Are you using a word wall of just a folder? I like the idea of adding spelling words to a list. That would help them be able to look up a certain type of word and get examples of other words that fall in the same category. Good idea.
I use a Word Wall for vocabulary. Every so often we review with a game. I have a coordinate grid with the letters of the alphabet placed randomly around them. The game goes like this... 1. I call out an ordered pairs for the letters of the word. 2. Students ring a bell to guess the word. If they're incorrect, however, guessing is closed to the whole class for three more letters. This eliminates constant guessing. 3. When a word is guessed correctly, that student/team gets a point for guessing the word. They are then given the chance to define the word for another point. (If they miss, the opportunity to define opens up to the whole class.) Finally, they can get one last point for giving an example of the word (or using it in a sentence or providing a synonym - whatever's appropriate). The kids love this game and it makes review a lot less tedious. I especially like it with my math word wall.
I use a word wall for math vocabulary. The words for each strand are grouped together on a different colour cardstock (e.g. geometry words on blue, data management on orange, etc.). Next year, I will be changing my word wall somewhat to include definitions and examples for my Special Ed students.
Hmmmm... I haven't really thought of that yet. Great, another thing to worry about! Well, I like rhinochunks idea. But, coming from a kinder background, I think I would do it alphabetically. Staple 26 pages together and have them add the words to their alphabet book. I'm not cetain about the word wall idea. When I taught kinder, I left the words up all year. I even had two word walls! But, since there are a lot more words for 5th, I'm thinking that maybe we should leave them up for a week????
I am curious about this as well. I don't have much wall space for a word wall, but I'd like to try to find some. I started thinking about this at the end of last year. If I do this I think I will use vocabulary from the units of study we are in (science and social studies) and change words as units change. That's all I have for now. I'm going to keep up with this thread for more ideas though.
I was also thinking...I may use the words that are generally found on TCAP, words that kids have to know to be able to answer questions. We were given a list (in our Literacy Training) of common TCAP words that we need to be teaching. I may put those up as we talk about them.
Use any vocabulary words, spelling, science, social studies, math, etc. This helps them stay focused on words that they are reading everyday. I would introduce 10 words a week possibily.
I would definitely include your TCAP words!! I have a chart I post with our ACTAAP words that really helps my students! A lot of times, we forget out the instructional words that our students might not know--but they need to know what describe, explain, compare, etc. mean. It helped my group out A LOT last year!
Thank you. The reason I will just have them add the pages by week is because most students should be profficient at alphabetizing by the 5th grade. I really just want the lists to be a reference material and I want to focus more on the spelling rules and word/sound groups. After reading other posts I believe I may add vocabulary words to the word wall. My ultimate goal is to have a math/science/computer wall which will have terms that are related to those subjects. Then a reading wall where we focus on strategies. A language arts wall that has our word wall as well as language vocabulary with definitions and examples. The last wall will be a social studies wall which will include a HUGE US map with losts of visuals (I have signed up for a post card exchange), labels etc... All walls will also have pictures of people who have ben influential in those fields. My point is, that beyond a formal word wall my room will be full of terms, words and names that will increase their understanding of the world they live in.
This sort of what I do. Whatever vocab words we are working with go on the WW. I have separate wall space for all subjects, so once we are finished with the words I just put them on the proper wall. The stay up all year. Sometimes before we leave the room, I go around the room and have the students give me the definition of an old WWW before they can line up. All most all of them can give me the definitions. This really reinforces the vocabulary.
shasha379 I like your idea about asking students the definition of a word on the word wall to line up.
My 4th grade word wall has our weekly vocabulary along with feelings and emotions cards where we can list other words related to mad or nervous or sad. We also put our anchor words for prefixes and suffixes.
I've been thinking about what to do this year since I will have the LD cluster and ELA cluster of kids. I've always had content boards for key vocabulary, but I definitely think I need a word wall for frequently mispelled words and even some high frequency words. This page helped to sort my thinking: http://www.teachers.net/4blocks/article1.html I'm still not sure about math though. I usually post words and pictures as we learn them, but I don't organize them by strand or alphabetical order. Do you think that's a big deal?
I have four long vertical banners with character trait words on them (sinister, devious, etc.) divided with different colored fonts into "good" traits and "bad" traits, topped with a horizontal banner that reads "What a character!" Kids use it for reading and writing lessons. It's in alphabetical order. When they come up with a new word that's not on the list, I write it on card stock and stick it up there. Another wall has transition words to use in writing. Very useful. Most of their spelling lists are categories they can use in writing, such as "emotions", "unusual colors", etc. They keep those lists in a writing resource folder.
Here is my math word wall. I bought it from Lakeshore and it is color coded according to math strands. I stuck mini magnets on the back so that kids could could use it as an interactive word wall. They come to the word wall, pick a word, and can read the definition and example on the back. By the way, my word wall is my air conditioner.
Great math word wall! I like the organization by strand; I have found that the students have an easier time finding the words they need and it increases their use of math vocabulary.
I like that math word wall! Now, where would I put something like that so the kids can take off the words and look at the back??
The teacher before me used one all the time and I was out shopping with her the other day and I picked up the book to start doing it this year. It's a great filler for like, 10 minutes. Another friend who subbed for her said that she loved using it too. So, I'm going to try it this year.
Mine is more of a Vocabulary Wall. If fact, I am changing the label this year to say just that. I teach reading and we focus on the meaning of words and relationship between words. They have a regular word wall or word dictionary in Writing class.
Gopher4, I saw your feelings charts in another thread and love the pictures. Where did you find those?
I was trying to remember that. Another teacher asked me about that last week. There is a colored poster I used to always see that said "How Are You Feeling Today?" and it had all the faces. I found a black and white copy somewhere and enlarged the faces. I'll try to find it and post it if I do. Sorry.
Here's the poster on Amazon. I guess you could get the faces from that. http://www.amazon.com/Feeling-Today-Smiley-Faces-Poster/dp/B0000VI28G
You know what, now that you said that, I think I have a copy of that somewhere! I received it from our school social worker. Now to locate it...
That should be the fun part. I have many bilingual students and so I also color the angry face red and the jealous face green and the sad face blue. It usually stems from some figurative language talk about "seeing green" or feeling "blue" or "seeing red". Anything that helps them associate the word with the meaning.
Here is my voacabulary word wall. I make a poster in printshop of each story we read. I put the vocabulary word underneath the poster. The words are put on write-on wipe-off sentence strips. I write the words in black, separating them by syllables using a red marker. Oh, and underneath the words are kWL charts for the same story.
