by Laurie Bellet
This is a follow up to Laurie’s last piece on bulletin boards, which can be found here.
Great mail this week!
From Doreen, regarding student names:
“I take photos of each class and mount them separately on colored papers. I have the children write their names near their faces, using an arrow if necessary. The colored sheets help me find the paper quickly at the beginning of class.”
Photos are terrific! Recently, I substituted for my friend Debi, a first grade teacher. In her lesson plans I found thumbnail photos of each child along with every name. This allowed me to greet each child as s/he walked through the door.
You can also tag student books with their photos to easily return an errant book to its reader. Texts like Ot even have a place to glue in a photo.
From Stacy regarding bulletin boards:
“I often use fabric to cover bulletin boards. One can typically find good deals on cottons-especially in the bargain bin. I buy enough fabric to cover a board and then use different trims for the edges (corrugated cardstock, wide ribbon, etc.)
There are so many options/backgrounds, etc.
Tack holes show up less. I imagine it takes longer to fade, as in many years of covering boards with fabric, I have not noticed.”
Fabric backgrounds certainly give an added dimension to your display and really work to cozy up the room. When you cover a bulletin board with felt, you need only attach display items with a piece of Velcro. A felt covered bulletin board transforms itself into a Word Wall.
A Word Wall is an ongoing interactive display and classroom tool. Word Walls are helpful for teaching relevant vocabulary (Hebrew and English) and offer an engaging context to introduce, display and reinforce material. You can use a Word Wall to display thematic pictures, and to chronicle any subject area for which you wish to maintain a clear summary of the information you have presented to the class.
A Word Wall can be created using a Velcro receptive fabric (felt, not flannel). You can cover any existing bulletin board with felt and finish the edges with border as you would with background paper.
Anything becomes Word Wall friendly when you place Velcro (rough side) onto the reverse side. To create material for your Word Wall, you can use:
Index cards
Photos
Die cuts, calendar cut-outs or bulletin board sets
Flash cards (either in Hebrew or translated form English)
Some Jewish teachers do not have their own classrooms and do not have a bulletin board advantage. All of the above display ideas as well as the project activities in this book can be adapted for display on a trifold display board. Trifold display boards are now available for purchase in a range of colors in addition to the standard white. Another alternative option is to use foam board with a “stick-on” easel placed on the back for upright display.
In the context of a shared or borrowed classroom, Word Walls can be appreciated by creating your display on a large piece of felt. Frame it with border if you like, fold or roll it up for convenient transport and hang it in the room or from a portable chart stand while you are teaching.
No matter how you display your Word Wall, your students will enjoy placing and removing the words as they readily increase their vocabulary and fluency and you will have ongoing documentation of your class progress!