Peek at my week... Poetry, word walls, and Indiana
Can you tell from this blog post title that this is a mish-mosh of ideas?
I will start with poetry. Over that last few weeks, I have been trying to snap photos of my friends during our poetry time.
These photos are from two separate weeks because when I am teaching, I don't always remember to take photos. Mondays We read and "act out" our poem. Right now, we are looking for sight words that are on our word wall.
We add the poem to our poetry notebook and circle our word wall words.
Tuesday We read and "act out" our poem. This particular week we thought of rhyming words and looked for vowels.
Wednesday We read and "act out" our poem. We completed a related sort
and added it to our interactive notebook.
Thursday We read and "act out" our poem. We complete another related sort for our interactive notebook.
Friday We read and "act out" our poem. Students color an emergent reader that matches the poem. (not pictured... #fail).
You can find the entire year's worth of poems
HERE.
I was also asked about my word wall. Here it is...
As you can see it is low to the ground, so the students can reach the words. Despite the poor iPad photo quality the words are easy to read from anywhere in the classroom. Each word is magnetically attached so we can USE the words. As you can tell from their lack of perfect alignment, these are used a lot.
It is tempting to "fancy up" my word wall with fun borders or bright background paper. But then I remember that students do not need this additional visual noise. So my word wall tips are: 1. Make it interactive if possible (I know every room does not allow for that.) 2. Keep it simple... save the busy borders and bright backgrounds for other displays. This is visually confusing. 3. Make sure the words can be clearly seen from anywhere in the room (see tip 2.)
I have my
Thanksgiving sentences ready for next week! (Sorry for the bad iPad image)
And here is my
focus wall for next week.
Lastly, I am so excited to head out towards
Indiana today! Two days with teachers while talking about kindergarten learning, sounds like a perfect way to start my week. Will you be there?