Week 3 Word walls

Word walls were the main focus for the beginning of our class last night. I really enjoy seeing various word walls in the classrooms I visit. Each grade has different themes or topics they need covered on their word walls. Word walls are very beneficial not only for our regular English speaking students but they benefit our ELL students by giving them a visual of how our words look. Like we learned in class last night word walls do not always have to be just words, they can focus on Math or science or social studies or whatever theme we are focusing on that session. Themes such as Fall, Spring, Summer, Poetry, Dr. Seuss, 100th day of school and so many more options. The main purpose of a word wall is to be a visual aid to help students who need a reminder or refresher on words or topics. I have seen some word walls that are very overwhelming and I think we need to be cautious not to over load the information we are putting on these walls. I am more of a straight to the point kind of person, so my word walls will more than likely be very specific for subject and or topic without too much flair to distract the student. 

The last half of class we discussed writing stations and how we could implement them into a lesson. I liked the ideas that the groups came up with and it was fun to see how differently all 3 groups went with it. I think writing stations are important but I also think we should find time as a class to focus on writing neatly and clearly. I feel we are missing that element of writing these days. Again, this week we covered a lot of information and I hope I can retain it all ;). I have my unit topic figured out and the items to be covered over the 10 days but now I am trying to figure out how to apply all aspects of language arts into each lesson, maybe station time will be the way to incorporate them all? Good Luck everyone!!