Classroom Displays to Rescue Tired Words!
Wandering the web looking for word wall classroom displays to share with you I found a couple of interesting sites I’d not seen before. I’ll save the other site for my next word wall post, but thought you might like this idea as much as I did.
Tired Words!
Tired words want to go to sleep.
Let them rest! Don’t make a peep!
Try to use a synonym instead.
Let those tired words stay in bed!
I found the display on Cheryl Sigmon’s Four Blocks site (There are more great ideas there so do have a look around!) Cheryl says:
Laura Croglio, a teacher at Clinton Elementary in West Seneca, NY shared this idea during my recent visit to her school, “I have my students go to the Tired Words Wall to choose a synonym for an overused word. They pull the synonym they like from the pocket, take it back to their seat to make sure they spell the word correctly (possibly adding it to their personal dictionary), and returning it to the wall when they’re finished.”
I think this is an excellent interactive word wall display. I’ve used laminated interactive word walls before, and of course word banks in various forms but I’d not seen the pocket idea.
You could even adapt a transparent shoe tidy. I’ve got one somewhere, so I might just do that to show you what I mean! That would be more versatile and hard wearing. When you design for interaction you have to remember that little fingers can be rough and paper tears easily.
Also I think I might use a mixture of interesting fonts and colours for the words. If you’ve got the time and a steady hand I’ve found that using hand written laminated words can be very helpful, especially when children are just starting to join letters.
What are your favourite ways of using interactive word wall classroom displays?
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