Do you have a word wall in your classroom? Don’t let it become a glorified decoration! Turn it into an interactive teaching tool instead.
Here are three activities to help you make the most of your word wall
#1: Categorize the Words in Unique Ways
The words on your word wall have so many attributes besides definitions. So use your word wall to help students recognize those other attributes. Here are some activities that will help students learn important patterns in our language:
- Sort words by parts of speech (noun, pronoun, verb, adjective)
- Sort words alphabetically
- Sort words by their prefixes (re-, un-, pre-) or suffixes (-s, -er, -able, -tion)
- Sort words by number of syllables
- Sort words by subject area (math, social studies, science)
#2: Let Students Add to Each Word
The more students interact with a new vocabulary word, the more likely they are to remember that word later. So why not let them interact with the words directly on the word wall? Let students pick a word (or assign them a word), and have them add an example sentence or a picture for the whole class to see. It will make them feel like the word wall is truly theirs.
#3: Keep Word Tallies
This is an awesome activity, especially if you have some common sight words on your word wall. Every time the class finds a word wall word during reading, place a tick mark next to the word. At the end of the day or week, check your word wall to see which words have shown up the most! You can even turn this activity into a game by letting students guess which words will appear most frequently.