WRITING CENTER GRAFFITI WALL

It's about time, teachers,... that I admit I am a word collector. I {heart} words. I {heart} interesting phrases. Although I do not feel a need for an intervention, I will (gulp) admit that as a child I used to read the dictionary.  

This love affair with words has continued throughout my adult life and I strive to share my passion with my students. That is what led me to create a graffiti wall in my writing center.  

My graffiti wall is simply a bulletin board dedicated to posts of interesting words and phrases. Both the students and I can write words on strips of paper and post them on the board. At the beginning of the year, I demonstrate this by extracting words and phrases from our read-alouds to post on the board. Before long, my students are pointing out the words they find interesting. I invite them to copy them and post them on our graffiti wall. Students who "catch my fever" even bring phrases in from home.

I've forged an alliance with the computer teacher to further spur our graffiti. When he introduces fonts to my class, he uses some of our graffiti wall words. Using the SmartBoard, he gives our words "life" by applying cool fonts to them. You should hear the oo-s and ah-s! Naturally, there is a marked increase in graffiti after that lesson!  

As a corollary to our graffiti wall, I have a "tired words" board. We put overworked words to bed and list alternatives on the foot board. I use a blackline picture, allowing a student to color and cut it out before adding it to the  board.

This, too, gains momentum over time. Before the year is over, we have a dormitory of beds with tired words!  

Both of these boards have improved my students' writing markedly. They are easy to accomplish and the payoff is huge. Try it. You'll like it.

Native American Heritage Month

November is Native American Heritage Month.   Celebrating their heritage with my students is something I look forward to each November.

Legends are inherent in any study of the Native American culture.  Thus, I begin by sharing picture books that are based on such legends.  Here are some of my favorites:

Perhaps my uber favorites are:

After reading The Legend of the Indian Paintbrush, my 3rd & 4th graders research other wildflowers in the computer lab. They choose one for their own legend, telling how the wildflower came to be.  

My 1st & 2nd graders focus on winter counts and skin stories. After sharing pictures of actual winter counts, we compose a skin story together.  I display picture dictionaries of Native American symbols and we collaborate on how to "tell" our story using the symbols. Then we prepare a "skin" using a paper grocery bag or construction paper.  Tear the corners and sides to mimic the shape of an animal skin. In an effort to be more authentic, we record the story on our skin by writing in an oval that expands outward.

This is a collaborative story by a group of 1st graders.  2nd graders can do this independently.

The vocabulary of the Native American culture is often foreign to my charges.  Thus, I have created several literacy center activities that allow the students to work with the vocabulary while practicing skills aligned with the CCSS.  

This one requires students to put the words in alphabetical order, using up to the 2nd letter.

This one asks students to sort the nouns cards into piles of people, places, or things.

For more activities to extend The Legend of the Indian Paintbrush, check out my thematic unit.  It is available on TpT and TN.










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More Back to School Time Savers

While there is no magic recipe for setting up your room and preparing to meet your students, there are many things that can ease you into it. I have a few suggestions for items to include in your backpack that may help alleviate some of the stress of going back to school. 

If you teach emergent readers, you know that word work is an essential component of reading instruction.  As a Reading Recovery teacher, I have spent years honing this aspect of literacy education. You can reap some benefits from my experience by perusing my 8 part blog series that starts here.  You may also wish to check out Word Work: A Guide for Teachers of Young Children.  

If blank bulletin boards bother you, download these FREE writing posters that coordinate with 6 Traits of Quality Writing. They can stay up all year!  Did I mention that they are FREE?

As students progress in reading and writing, an essential skill is breaking words into syllables.  Syllabication skills are included in EVERY elementary grade level of the CCSS.  As a literacy specialist, I have come to recognize that many struggling readers and writers do not have a good grasp of these skills.  Take some time to teach syllabication. The return is huge!

To help you with this task, I have several editions of Rules of Syllabication products that make excellent bulletin boards and/or center anchor charts.  The rules in each of the following are the same; the graphics and size of the posters vary by theme.

You may also like the Under the Sea Edition Bundle which includes the rule posters from the Under the Sea Edition above and a delightfully animated power point presentation.

As you are preparing centers and small groups, you may find the following syllabication activities helpful.  Friendly Frog's Syllables Book and Friendly Frog in Outer Space are both well suited to small group instruction or independent work.

Friendly Frog is very popular with my students.  Hence, he is a frequent visitor to our centers. The kiddos are always excited to see him back.  You can find these centers here.

Until next time...

Rules for Syllabication

It's about time, teachers...that we really teach our students the rules for syllabication. Knowing those rules helps children to decode words in reading and to determine correct pronunciations.  It helps them to apply spelling patterns in their writing and to make their writing easier to read.  And, of course, it is a component of the Common Core Standards.  

For years, I have used old fashioned, plug & chug practice.  It may not be creative, but it surely is effective.  Following are a few samples of my syllabication unit for primary students:

This unit includes 12 rules for syllabication.  Each rule has a full page of practice on that rule only.  Repetition is an effective teacher.  Also included are several pages of mixed practice:  

After mentoring scores of student teachers, I can say with certainty that they benefit greatly from taking a refresher course in the rules of syllabication.  The vast majority of my student teachers comment positively about working through this unit.  They they boldly take a blank copy with them for future reference and as an addition to their teaching files.

My unit, Friendly Frog's Syllables Book, is 17 pages long. It's available on TpT or TN.  

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