My Interactive Word Wall

Each colour represents sight words for year 1, 2, or 3. The white words are words that come from the student's writing. I now have students suggesting words for me to include onto the wall, such as; eight, swimming, lesson, autograph, friend and equals. Each word is stuck onto the board using blue-tac so students can come and chose the word they want to spell, take the card to their desk and then return the card to its position when they are finished. This wall is behind my desk, so students must walk past it to show me their work. I will often send them back to their desk to check words that I know are on the wall. Since implementing my word wall in this way I have noticed a decrease in the number of sight words being misspelt in students writing.

Creating a Universe of Books

At the beginning of the term I introduced a new concept to my classroom. Every day we have Crunch and Sip so I took the opportunity to use this time to expose my students to a wide variety of books. Each day I select one student to chose a book from the class book shelf for me to read while the students eat their fruit and vegetables. We discuss if the book is a fiction or non-fiction text and the different features of each type of book. Most of the books are picture books, but if a chapter book is chosen, then we simply use a bookmark and place it back on the bookshelf waiting for another student to chose it. With each book selected, students are given a  star. On each star I write the students name and the title of the book. Students highly value the opportunity to place a star into our growing universe of books and are impressed with the vast number of books we have read this term.