Word Wall

Howdy! Happy Sunday!  A necessity in any primary classroom (or any grade level for that matter) is a word wall.  Here is a picture of the first word wall I made for the first year I taught back in '07-'08 (it's on the large white board in the back- sorry for the small size).

At the time, I thought it was great.  I had a teddy bear theme and a bear with each letter on the alphabet.  I evenly spaced out the bears and took my time with making it.  Each week I wrote words (HFW) with a dry erase marker to it.  Eventually, though this one became a problem for several reasons;
1) It was too large.
2) It was not in a good place, and I needed that board for other things.
3) The words would sometimes rub off (since it was dry erase).
4) It wasn't appealing to the kids.
Over the years, I've learned a thing or two to make word walls better.  Below is the word wall from my classroom this past year.

This word wall has worked out better for me since it's smaller, more appealing, and in a better location.  I also write the words on sentence strips and put those up rather than writing the words in marker.  This word wall is over a bulletin board and the paper extends onto my white board a foot or two.  It's also upfront and I can refer to it if I need to while teaching.  Next year my math wall will go here, so I'll have to find a new home for my word wall.  I never keep things the same two years in a row! :)

Another type of word wall I have in my classroom is a "word family" wall.  I keep word families up all year to help with spelling.  I don't have any pictures, but I'll post some when I have it up and running in September (it starts off slow and gets added to as the year goes by).