Word Walls

Using poems with word families

Use familiar Rhymes and make them your own

A favorite to use is Down by The Bay or the old classic Roses are Red as a starting off point. I will model how to make the rhymes, and then either trade off with one child or go around the circle with a group. One thing you may notice is that when children can't find a rhyme, they may simply repeat the first word. For example you will say, "Have you ever seen a bat wearing a ___" and instead of saying hat or another rhyming word, they repeat bat. That's OK. They know that bat and bat both have the same last sound. If they say a word that doesn't rhyme at all more than once, this activity might be too hard for them. In that case, there are two things you can do. First, try making them say the initial rhyme, and you can model the matching one. Or if that doesn't work, you can just move on.

Wonderfluency: sight word phrases

Jumping Letters

Create a sheet with p, b, d, and q all lower case and randomly on the sheet. Use a yardstick. Have the student look at the first letter on the top left of the sheet, tell the student that they are in the circle. Have the student jump to put the body in the position with the yardstick that the circle is in relation to the line (ex. The top left letter is p. The student jumps to the top left of the yardstick to make a p.) Repeat the same procedures for all the letters on the sheet. Once this is done successfully with no errors, have them say aloud where they jump (ex top right). Then prior to jumping say what letter they are making. You can also do this activity outside with sidewalk chalk.

ABC Order

Take a blank sentence strip. Place an ABC desk tape on one side and a 1-20 desk tape on the other side and aminated. When working on ABC order the students are given an ABC strip and big paperclips (a later option here would be numbered clothespins). They look at their words and put a paperclip (or clothespin) over the letter that each one begins with. Then they can look at the strip and see which letter comes first, second, and third.

When working with a larger number of words, write the words on 3x5 index cards and place them in the pocket chart with one of the ABC strips at the top. The students can then physically move the cards in the pockets vertically until they get them in the correct order. Then they copy them down onto their paper. By letting them move them around in the pocket chart first, they can more clearly visualize what they are copying down.

Wonderfluency: For Fluency continue to work on the High-frequency phrases found here

Bean Bag Toss

Materials: One shower curtain liner divided into 20 squares

Bean Bag

Words on large cards with small numbers on the corner of each card.

Attach the words to the shower curtain with tape or rubber cement before the game is to be played. Divide the class into 2 teams. Each team will take turns throwing the bean bag to a square. If the student can read the word the bean bag lands on, the team gets the number of points on the card. If the student misses the word, the other team gets the chance to say it. The team with the most points wins the game.

Some alternative games using a shower curtain:

• For the beginning of the year or for kindergarten: Write the letters of the alphabet onto cards. The children identify the letter name or the sound(s) that letter makes.

• Make index cards for upper and lower case letters. Give the students the lower case cards to match to the upper case liner. Give the other students upper case cards to match to the lower case liner. For variation -- they can choose the card from a pile and then attempt to toss the bean bag onto the matching box.

• Students can toss the bean bag onto the liner. They must then name a word that begins with the sound of the letter it landed on.

• Students pick up a picture card. they must then try to toss the bean bag onto the square that contains the letter that matches the beginning sound of the picture on the card.

Wonderfluency: For Fluency continue to work on the High-frequency phrases found here

Go on a word hunt

Write word wall words or names on sticky notes and stick them all over the classroom or school. Have a page with the words on them. Have students walk around the classroom and school to find the words. Students make tally marks by the words or names they find. Discuss what words the students found, what words they saw the most and least. Then read all the words together. When finished save the sticky notes to use again.

Read and Write Around the Room

You need several clipboards, copy paper, cool pens, and pointers are placed in a dish tub for the students to use during center time. I explain the purpose of the activity, to find as many words or letters of one type as possible and I give several examples. I model for the entire class how to use the items in the tub daily during the first week. Pointing out print sources all around the classroom, I write on my clipboard and refer to the word wall often. When the students are done with a sheet of paper they may place it in a special Read and Write Around the Room “in-box”.

Wonderfluency: Continue with high-frequency word phrases

Alphabet Concentration

choose 8-12 letters and create a set of letter cards, making two cards for each letter. Have students lay the cards facedown and take turns picking up two cards at a time. If the letter match the child keeps them and takes another turn. The game is over when all the cards have been chosen.

Alphabet bingo and High-Frequency word phrases

Have the letters on a bingo card and say the names and sounds as you pick the letters.

High-Frequency word phrases: use the word phrases here to create a PowerPoint presentation, read the phrases to the students and then have them choral read them with you, update the presentation as they learn new words.

*Powerpoint courtesy of Rebecca Kreiling Boeckman PACES.

Letter Murals

On a large piece of paper, print the letter you wish to target. Give students old magazines (or they can use google images), and catalogs and ask them to find the letter in as many places as they can. Encourage them to look for the letter in different sizes, colors and fonts (or they can create them in google docs- or find the letters on websites). Students should cut out the letters and glue them on the paper (or they can paste them in jamboard or a shared document).

I spy letters in the room

Pair students up and have them search for designated letters on books in the library, on the signs or posters in the room. During distance learning you could create a bitmoji classroom and have them find the letters in their or during shared reading have them focus on those letters.

Follow the ABC Path

Cut out stones from gray or brown construction paper and print an alphabet letter on each stone. Laminate the stones for durability. Tape them on the floor of your classroom in alphabetical sequence. The student can sing or say the alphabet song while walking on the letter path. You can continue this by scrambling up the letters and have each student search for the letters in order.

You can't catch me

Have the students sit in a circle. Explain to the class that the game's rules are similar to duck duck, grey duck. Select one student to be it. The chosen student walks around the circle, lightly tapping the top of each player's head with simultaneously saying a letter of the alphabet(without repeating any letters). At anytime, "it" can call out the letter z. The player tapped on the z jumps up to chase it around the circle. If "it" avoids being tagged by player "Z" It sits down in player z spot. Player z then becomes it and the game continues in the same manner. This can be used for your letter of the day, it doesn't just have to be the letter Z.

Sorting Alphabet cereal

Place small paper plates on a table. Label each plate with a letter. Give each child a small cup of letter-shaped cereal pieces or letter-shaped dry macaroni. The students can sort the letter shapes onto the matching letter plates.

Whose Name has the Letter "____" in it?

Record the first names of your students on a sentence strip or on copies. It is helpful to include a picture at first along with the names. Later remove the picture when the students have become familiar with their classmates' names. Play games with the prepared materials by asking various questions that are related to the letters in the names.

NAME PUZZLES AND ALPHABET WALL

Print each students name on a sentence strip. Let the students cut apart the letters and keep them in envelopes. Invite them to put together and take apart their names. Students will also enjoy cutting apart their names and then gluing each letter on the correct page on the letter wall. As the students cut apart the letters, ask them to tell you the letter name and sound before they glue it on the letter wall.

Sorting Using Letters in a name

There are many fun sorting games students can play using their names, such as:

Sort names by first letter

Sort names by last letter

Sort names that have the same number of letters

Sort names that hade the same letter clusters

Sort names by those that have "tall" letters, letters with "tails", letters with dots, and letters with circles.

Greeting

In the beginning of the year when we gather during circle time I will say good morning to each child individually. As we say good morning to a child he may go to the word wall and point to his name for the whole class using a fancy pointer. We may also discuss other students who also start with the same letter and point out their pictures as well. As the student points to his name I try to verbalize it as well; “Michael’s name is after Karen’s name but before Samantha’s on the word wall.” In addition to teaching the sequence of the alphabet this activity also introduces the children to the concept of the word wall and helps them to become comfortable using it.

Go Fish

Use pictures of students and staff with the names printed below (need 2 of each) to play go fish.

Name Activity

Each child writes the name and draws picture for target child.

Name wall

Cut up the name and have the student put the name in the right order using the word wall as the model

Emergent Readers: Focus on the students and staff names. Introduce the names and show where they are placed on the word wall (highlight the first letter in the name and find that letter on the word wall)

Younger: Poem Definition

Use a word from the word wall to create a poem.

Line 1: Name it.

Line 2: Describe it, rename it.

Line 3: Tell where it would be found.

Line 4: Tell more about it.

Line 5: Use emotion words to tell how you feel about this.

Line 6: Explain why you used the emotion words in Line 5

Wonderfluency: Lion to Lamb Answer Key Lion to Lamb

Older: Drama:

Students choose a word from the word wall and improvise a situation that portrays the word. Peers guess the word.

Wonderfluency: March into April

Younger: BlastOff

A simple game where students are verbally or visually given a word. Rocket in hand, they start out by crouching low and saying each letter or sound as they stand up until they “blast off” the word.

Word Ladder: Polar Bear Answer Key

Older: Word Pictures

Working in teams, students select one of the words from the word wall and illustrate it on the board or on chart paper. The opposing team gets a point for a correct guess and illustrates another word.

Wonderfluency: Polar Bear

Younger: Word Wall Snap

The class forms 2 lines. The teacher is in front of the 2 lines. The teacher points to a word wall (or uses the word wall cards), the first student to say the definition of the word remains in front of the line. The other student goes to the back of the line and the 2 students in front continue on.

Older: Word Wall Stories

Students use as many of the word wall words as they can to write a story

Valentines Word Ladder Answer Key

Wonderfluency: Valentine's songs for fluency practice

Hot Seat

In this activity, one student is selected to come to the front of the class and take the "hot seat." The hot seat is located a few feet in front of a chalkboard, whiteboard, or chart. The student sits in a chair facing his or her classmates and with his or her back to the board or chart. The student also should have a clear view of the class word wall.

The teacher or a classmate selects a word from the word wall (or from students' spelling or vocabulary lists) and writes that word on the board or chart. The student in the hot seat is unable to see the word, but it is his/her job to guess the word by asking questions that help to narrow down the possibilities. For example, the student in the hot seat might ask

• Is it a noun?
• Does it have fewer than 10 letters?
• Does it have more than two syllables?
• Is the vowel a found in the word?
• Would this word be found in the first half of the dictionary?

As the student narrows down the word, the questions might get more specific. For example, if the students gets a positive response to the question Is it an animal?, then the follow-up questions might include Is it bigger than a fox? or Does this animal live in the rain forest? If the clues help the student narrow down the word to a handful of possibilities, the student might ask questions to narrow down those possibilities, such as Does the word mean the same thing as [a definition of the word]? or Does the word rhyme with [another word]?

Keep a tally of the number of questions/clues it takes for the student to guess the word.

Wonderfluency: Work with this poem Good Molly Cow

• Monday: Teacher models the reading of the text

• Tuesday: Choral reading of the text

• Wednesday: Practice in small groups

  • Use breakout rooms in meet or zoom

• Thursday: Dress Rehearsal

• Friday: Performance with an authentic audience- invite parents, other teachers, other students, your reading specialist, your admin team.

Younger Go on a word Hunt

Write word wall words or names on sticky notes and stick them all over the classroom or school. Have a page with the words on them. Have students walk around the classroom and school to find the words. Students make tally marks by the words or names they find. Discuss what words the students found, what words they saw the most and least. Then read all the words together. When finished save the sticky notes to use again.

Older Visiting Word

After students have worked on a word wall for a substantial period of time, add a “visiting”

word. This encourages students to do a review of the word wall as they hunt for the new word. Present the visiting word as the new word for the day.

OOPS

The game is very simple. Gather students into a group. One at a time, have individual students come forward and pull a word card. As a student pulls a card, she or he turns to the other students, shows the card, and says the word. If the student says the word correctly, he or she gets to keep the card. If the word is read incorrectly, the card is put back into the box. You might challenge older students to spell aloud the word (without looking at it) or give a definition of the word before allowing them to keep the cards. Continue the game in that way. Eventually, students might gather a handful of cards. A student who pulls one of the OOPS! cards, however, must give up all the word cards she or he has gathered to that point. A player who pulls an OOPS! card is back to square one! When time is up -- an ideal game time might be 10 to 15 minutes -- the student holding the most word cards is the winner.

Extension Activity

Make the box of word cards available to students during rainy-day recesses so small groups of students can play the game on their own.

Wonderfluency: National popcorn day word ladder

Younger Word Wall Snap and sight word phrases

The class forms 2 lines ( or two groups on the online platform you use). The teacher is in front of the 2 lines. The teacher points to a word wall (or uses the word wall cards), the first student to say the definition of the word remains in front of the line. The other student goes to the back of the line and the 2 students in front continue on.

Have students become more fluent by reading sight word phrases. Here is a link to a folder with the sight word phrases presentation as well as a resource for all the phrases.

Older Word Wall Stories and fluency activities

Students use as many of the word wall words as they can to write a story.

Use poetry, songs or readers theater to develop and enhance fluency for your students. Here is a folder with resources and how to do it.

Younger: High-Frequency word phrases and Word Ladders

High-Frequency word phrases: use the word phrases here to create a PowerPoint presentation, read the phrases to the students and then have them choral read them with you, update the presentation as they learn new words.

*Powerpoint courtesy of Rebecca Kreiling Boeckman PACES.

Word Ladders: a great way to work on words and teach vocabulary. You can create your own using your word wall or chose one from this folder which I will keep updating.

Older: Word Ladders

A great way to work on words and teach vocabulary. You can create your own using your word wall or chose one from this folder which I will keep updating.

Younger: Peer Test

Students take turns testing each other on the spelling or meaning of each of the words

Older:

Learners participate in creating a word wall finding words and filling out a Learner Word Wall Form adding it to the Word Wall. The words may be related to a specific book or content area.

Younger: On the back

Students work with partners and draw the words with their finger on their partners back. When the student guesses the word, they trade places. During distance learning they could trace it in the air and have their partner guess then switch when they guess the correct word.

Older: Create a crossword puzzle

For making online you can use criss cross puzzle maker or Discovery Education Website once words and clues are entered a finished puzzle is created that may be spring or copied and pasted into another document.

Younger: Missing word:

Remove a word from the wall and maybe rearrange the remaining words. Have students figure out which word is missing. May need to give clues to help them figure out what is missing.

Older: Words in Action:

Brainstorm words that describe how ________looks, sounds, and/or feels. In pairs create a list of 10 words that describe the vocabulary word.

Join another pair, share lists, and add any new words. Join another group of 4 and repeat. The end result will be a list to be posted in the room for use and reflection.

Younger: Guess my word wall word:

Teacher gives clues about each word. This activity can be done in a couple of ways. The teacher gets the students to number off from 1 to 10 in their notebooks and gives clues about the word. The student then writes down what they believe the word is. The other method is to do the activity orally and let a student point to the word on the word wall.

Older: Complete at least three.

• Define the word.

• What do you notice about the word.

  • # of letters

  • # of consonants, vowels

• Create a math problem with the #’s.

• Use the word in a meaningful sentence.

• Write all parts of speech for the word.

• Analyze for root word, prefixes, suffixes.

Younger: Categories:

Name a category, such as parts of speech, opposites, location, etc., and ask students to call out words from the word wall that are in the given category. Ask students to choose category topics according to the words that are on the word wall and allow them to move the words until they are in their correct categories.

Older: Create a list of words associated with the vocabulary word.

For example:

synonyms

antonyms

descriptors

People/Organizations

Younger: Around the World:

All the students sit in a circle (or in their desks) One student stands behind another student who is sitting. The teacher flashes them a word. Whichever child says or defines the word first will move on to the next student. The student who makes it back to his or her own desk or starting point is the winner.

Older: Brainstorm words/phrases that are synonymous or use the vocabulary word.

Younger: Ball Toss:

Put students in small groups. The leader of the group shares one thing learned about a particular word on the word wall, then toss the ball to someone in the group. That student shares something different, and so on.

Older: I Have Who Has? Game

Make cards based on your word wall words. The person who has the card that says, “I have the first card, who has…?’ will read first. The rest of the group will listen to the question and will look to see if their card has the answer at the top. If so, they read their card and ask the question at the bottom of their card. This continues until they get to the last card which says, “Everyone, what word means…?”

Younger readers

“Rhyme with the Word Wall”

The teacher says a sentence which contains a word that rhymes with one of the Word Wall words and is spelled with the same pattern. Children must decide which word rhymes and how to spell it. For example the teacher might say: "This is a word that begins with m and rhymes with fan" The children write the correct word. Then as a class we chant the spelling of each of the words.

Older readers

“Words in Action”

Brainstorm words that describe how ________looks, sounds, and/or feels. In pairs create a list of 10 words that describe the vocabulary word.

Join another pair, share lists, and add any new words. Join another group of 4 and repeat. The end result will be a list to be posted in the room for use and reflection.

Guess the Covered Word (Cross-checking)

• Write a sentence on the board covering on word with two sticky notes.
• Read the sentence and students suggest words that could fill in the blank. Record each of the words suggested
• Uncover the initial consonant and modify list accordingly. Add other possibilities.
• Take off the 2nd sticky note to see which is the correct word.

Younger students: Missing word

Remove a word from the wall and maybe rearrange the remaining words. Have students figure out which word is missing. May need to give clues to help them figure out what is missing.

Older students: Words within Words

Students make a list of as many words as possible by reorganizing some of the letters of a

word wall word. Students could write the word on a piece of paper and then cut the letters

apart so that they can move them around and try different combinations.

Padlet

• Like a digital bulletin board
• Collaborative

• Students can post anonymously, but need accounts to use their names

Jamboard

• Also like a digital bulletin board

• Uses Google account for sign in

Google Sheets Template

• Collaborative or personalized

• Make a copy of this template and make it your own

Google Meet

• Whiteboard