Ideas for working with Word Wall Words

 So, as a homeschool teacher I think it's important to have certain routines in our classroom. One of the things my daughter loves to do is the Word Wall.

We start the week by playing Word Bingo on Mondays. We do this every Monday and it's our first activity of the day. I have a set of 12 words that we will be working on throughout the week. I print them randomly in 3 columns (I don't actually used a bingo board, although you can). Then, I give my daughter a bag of pennies for her to mark the words as I read them.

When one column is completely filled in, she yells Bingo! As an end to the activity, I will write each word on an index card and my daughter will pin them on our Word Wall. It's a great start to our week and we both enjoy this activity.

Here are some other ideas for working with Word Wall Words:

• Word Pyramids - I give my daughter a sheet with blank lines (in the shape of a pyramid), and she has to spell out the words, letter by letter. We do 3 word pyramids at a time (more than that would get boring!). Depending on the level of difficulty of the words in a particular week, we may do word pyramids a couple of times a week.

• Alphabet word order game - My daughter takes the index cards down from our Word Wall and she places them in alphabetical order. This is a great activity for practicing alphabet order, especially when there are several words with the same first letter. The kids really need to think about alphabet order to place the words correctly. Again, another simple activity, but for some reason, Buttercup loves it.

•  "Words out of a hat"  - This is a game I created to practice sentence parts (Not a very creative name but it works). I wrote down a set of language related directions and Buttercup will randomly pick one out of a hat! and she has to follow the instructions on the paper. For example: Once card reads "Choose any word with a long vowel sound". Buttercup looks at the Word Wall to find a word that fits the requirement. I have included this activity in My Printables, so feel free to print out the directions and try them out. I would suggest playing this game once or twice a week. In my house, we play it every day and Buttercup goes through all of the cards because she loves this activity as well. I think it might be her favorite.

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  Writing practice - Sometimes I'll just ask Buttercup to pick 3 words and write sentences in her notebook.

• Word Scramble - Towards the end of the week, when Buttercup has pretty much mastered all of her Word Wall words, I give her a word scramble. I usea free website called Superkids that allows you to plug in your own words and it scrambles them for you. Word scramble is a more challenging activity which is the reason I reserve it for the end of the week. I want to make sure Buttercup has a good grasp of the words (imagine trying to unscramble words before you really even know how to spell them; that could be very discouraging for the child).

We end the week with a "test" (in quotes because we don't really do tests in our homeschool). I will read the words from the week and she will write them down. There is a reward for spelling all 12 words correctly! That is a huge incentive and makes the "test" more of a challenge. My daughter will usually be able to spell them all. If she still has trouble with a word, we will work on it the following week.

Here is a complete list of our Word Wall activities and games:
-Word Bingo
-Word Pyramids
-Words out of a hat
-Alphabet order game
-Word Scramble
-Sentences
-Dictation

Try out these activities and let me know how they work out for you.

Happy Homeschooling Adventures!

Teaching Synonyms and Antonyms in first grade

I recently taught my first grader synonyms and antonyms. I've mentioned many times before that one of my objectives in homeschool is to make learning fun. I try to stay away from lecture based lessons, opting instead, for games and other activities that reinforce my teachings in a stress free, fun environment. It seems to work so well for us, so I wanted to share some of my ideas.

I started by making a list of simple words, words at the first grade level. Then, I printed the words in card format and we played Synonym Match Game. It is a very simple game similar to Memory Game. My daughter and I spread out the cards faced down on our table. Then we took turns turning over two cards. The main difference is that we would turn over one card, read the word and say its synonym. Then, we would turn over another card. If that card matched what we said, we would keep both cards and the next player would take a turn. If it didn't match, we would simply turn both cards down and the next player would take a turn.

It was a great learning exercise because my daughter practiced reading and she had to come up with the synonym on her own. She was motivated because she wanted to win; she wanted to make as many matches as she could!

The game actually took longer than I expected or even planned for, but my daughter had so much fun with it, she just wanted to keep going.

When we were done, she wanted to play the Antonym Match Game, which I had planned as a different lesson. But since we were having fun and she was learning, we just kept going.

I have both games here under My Printables. Feel free to print out the cards and play! Please make sure you read my terms of use before you print. As always, these are my original ideas and I would appreciate credit if you mention it in a blog or website.

How do you teach synonyms and antonyms? I'd love to hear your ideas.