Word Nerd

Recent staff development and discussions of the shared appreciation we all have for the words of the English language inspired the title for my "Word Wall" this year.  I have a few goals involving this wall that are much different than they were in my math classroom.

We are building this wall together, as well as categorizing.  It will include weekly vocabulary from the district curriculum that guides our writing and the process, as well as words we come across in our reading together.

I plan to invite my students to look for new vocabulary by using a few strategies from Abydos training.  My students will have a paper sack glued in the front of their Writer's Notebooks.  They will have small notecards readily available for writing down unfamiliar words that they are then invited to share with the class, explore, illustrate, and use in a sentence.  They will be able to store these notecards in their paper sack "Word Bank".  Each Friday we will add the most popular words of the week from our banks to the class wall.

A major goal I have for this year is building schema and worldly ideas in the minds of my students.  I plan to use a website that I recently fell in love with to add this into the weekly routine of my class.  Wonderopolis offers a "Wonder of the Day", including a vocabulary list and a neat short video that students can watch that relates to the topic.  Our warm-ups on Wednesday will be special as my class participates in "Wonderopolis Wednesday".  Students will read through the short passage for the wonder of the day and make note of any words they are not familiar with on their notecards, which will be placed in their Word Bank.  We will discuss the passage and how it relates to our lives, talk about the vocabulary, and students will then be able to visit our class Edmodo outside of class, where I will have the corresponding videos linked.

Nothing like building schema with a short warm-up that is interesting.  I really hope my students look forward to "Wonderopolis Wednesday" this year!