Monday Motivation, Word Walls

I am joining Jen over at Teacher by the Beach (click button below to join) for a fun weekly link-up.  

This week is all about word walls.  I missed last week's post on center management.  I may go back and write about that later as I have a lot to say about stations/centers.  That is basically how I teach all day long.

Word Walls:
Well, I read a couple of the blogs that posted on this too and feel similarly about it.  I found that my word wall can be a waste of space.  There are always a good chunk of kids that use it consistently but it takes up such a large space and doesn't feel really useful.

Then, similar to A Teeny Tiny Teacher, I found that I was not proactive about getting the words up on the wall as we were learning them.  The word wall above is on the right...and it is January!!!  We knew way more words than the above by January.  
I work at a STEM Magnet elementary school and this year we are integrating more than we have before.  So, my word wall plan is changing.  I still need to teach the "trick" or sight words from Fundations that our district uses.  I still will have the kids write their words in their "dictionaries."

The change will come in how I organize the wall area/words and how I will integrate it into our STEM learning. 
During our math block, I will be using STEAM stations.  Each letter stands for a center rotation.  Stem bins (from Brooke Brown), Tech time, Enrichment (hands-on games), At your seat (interactive notebooks), and Meet with the teacher (differentiated lessons from the curriculum that is required of us).  During the STEM bins time, the kids have a science notebook that they will be using to complete an activity or job.  They will need to use the sight/trick words from their dictionary in their writing. 

I will also have a small area to post on the wall, just a few of the words that we are learning (maybe a 2-3 week's worth of words) as a resource.  They will need to highlight those words with highlighter (that's the part that will make doing that fun) in their notebooks.   
I will also have a STEM vocabulary area that I will need to organize.  I already have a math vocabulary wall section too!  Phew.  Too much.  I will need to rethink all of those to make them less busy and overwhelming.

Sidenote- I have been purging my house this whole summer.  I'm going through my home, room by room and trying to get rid of as much clutter and unused things as I can to simplify our life at home...because it is really overwhelming for much of the school year.  I am feeling the need to do the same thing at school.  I always have lots of things on the walls and stuff set up in the room to make it "cute" and coordinated.  I am now trying to change that to be more purposeful than ever before.  I want my classroom to feel calm, spacious, and homey.  I need it to be easy to navigate and for everything to have a very specific purpose, use and place...or it needs to go!!!  

Link up with Jen and tell us about your word wall(s).  Maybe it will help people like me who are always looking for new ideas.  

Classroom Library Organization

I am linking up with Jen over at Teacher by the Beach for her Monday Motivation.

This week is all about how you organize your classroom library.  I have a large classroom library.  I also don't have a lot of time. If you know me, you know I am a bit over the top with most things...for sure with organization.  But, I don't over organize my library.  Shocking, I know. 
I organize just enough so that I know where to find a book and so that the kids know where to return it when they have librarian job that week.  
I teach first grade, and that means I need a lot of different topics and levels of books.

I use baskets and themed stickers on the spine of the book that match the tags on the baskets.  I got the labeling product from Christina Mauro at A Tale of Two K Teachers.  Although, I can not find her product on the TPT site anymore, she has other great items.  

I DO NOT organize by level!!!  I do not even label levels either.  I teach my kids the 5 Finger Rule- Pick your book, turn to a random page and start reading.  For each mistake or struggle you have, put up a finger.  I tell them that if they get to 4 struggles, it may be too hard.  If no fingers go up, the book is probably too easy.  I do not tell them they can or can't read a book based on that rule though.  If there is a book they want to have in their bin, I let them go for it.  Why not!?  

I use leveled readers during our small group meetings and at other times of the day.  I assign those reads and that is when they get to practice reading on-level books.  They can also come to me and ask for me to give them some specific on-level books (which a few kids choose to do) for their bin.  The books they choose to be interested in, I feel, needs to be completely their choice.  I have book levels ranging from pre-k to about 7th grade.  I have a good amount of science books (as I teach at a STEM school) and those are super hard and full of tough vocab but have really cool and inspiring pictures.  I wouldn't want to tell a child reading at a kinder level that they aren't allowed to read/look through a science book because the text is too hard.  Who knows, maybe they will become the next Bill Gates because of the love of STEM that they grow starting with that cool book!

There are several others who posted along with Jen, Teacher by the Beach.  Go check out some of the other ways people organize their classroom library.  Each one has a different perspective.  Check them out!

Thanks for stopping by,