Over the years I have displayed my word wall words in a variety of ways, and this year is no exception. I will have this cute school bus full of owls on two walls. One will be by Unit, and the other will be Alphabetical. I am working on student dictionaries for the alphabetical word wall. It is so important to present words in a variety of ways, so here are some ideas!
First of all, anytime we have a list of words bigger than one or two, we SING them! You can sing “I , have, little” to the tune of Three Blind Mice! Make it a part of your morning meeting and just see what happens! For longer lists, you can sing them to Camptown Races or London Bridges! Here is an example for each:
(Camptown Races)
Have, put, did, not, but, you, get,
Doo-dah, Doo-dah,
Have, put, did, not, but, you, get,
Oh, Doo-dah Day.
(London Bridges)
I, am, little, to, and, a,
Can, we, the,
Said, he, she,
We, was, my, me, have, did, but,
I know my sight words!
Seriously, there are so many little commonly known songs that will help you sing through your sight words! Try it! Your kids will love it too! An additional part of my routine is to do the Whole Brain Teaching Gestures for our sight words.
Another trick for helping to learn those words is to color code them to match the units you introduce them with. I have always done this.
Something else I love to do is Super Speed Sight Words from Whole Brain Teaching. Kids get to race against themselves or a partner as they learn to have automaticity with their words. This game is a win-win! I had a little guy who reported EVERY day first thing in the morning about how he had beat his speed practicing at home the night before. Kids love healthy competition! I like to have them beat their own speed because it’s the best form of competition. Your personal best is the best for you!
For more ideas, I highly recommend Whole Brain Teaching, the website, and the online videos. Here is one of the first K videos they put out. It gives you a glimpse of some of the WBT day.
Now for your chance to win a new display set that has editable word cards in 7 colors. Most series have 7 units (although I have heard of 8), and we all have different requirements, so why reinvent the wheel? I decided to make the word cards editable so you can put your own words for your grade level in. Just leave a comment. I’ll pick a winner once a day (via random number generator) all week for this new packet. 🙂 More comments = more chances.
The other set is generic with cute Teacher Laura kids clip art! You can view it here!
And, if you teach words by unit, here is a freebie for you for students to record their own unit’s words for study. This is also editable :).
Leave a Reply