Portable Word Wall With Test Taking Privacy

Whew, I am so glad tomorrow today is Friday!  My hubby said something about 4 day work weeks being just as hard as 5 day work weeks and I was trying to figure out what he was talking about!  It took me a few seconds before I realized we had Monday off!  This week has been eventful to say the least.  I found out yesterday we are losing an amazing teacher due to our 10 day count being short :(.  I am so sad!  That also means that one of the other third grade teachers will be going back down to 2nd grade, where she was last year.  I will also be getting about 5 more students so I'm a little overwhelmed trying to make sure I have everything set up and ready to go for Monday.  In fact, I stayed at school until 5:40 this afternoon!  I am looking forward to resting this weekend and the USC vs. Georgia game!  I love that some of you are also big college football fans!  I am slightly obsessed, which I'm sure you can't tell :)

So anyways, back to what this post is about.  I can take no credit for this because I got all of the sheets and ideas from the current 3rd grade chair who has been teaching 3rd grade for about 6 years.  Just wanted to share that disclaimer :)

In the beginning of the year (and likely next week for all my new friends who are joining my room), I give my students these sheets to decorate (including stamping their coins):

Word Wall[1]

  Now last year, I learned my lesson.  First, let me show you what they look like assembled so you get what I'm saying.  Here it is (notice...still not laminated...arg!)

So last year, I laminated the file folders first.  Then, when the students finished coloring in their pages, I stapled every little page on (including the word wall part on the inside, which was blank mind you).  Well, since most of you are teachers I'm sure you know where I'm going with this...staples were coming out, poking kids left and right.  So this year, I knew something had to change. 

I had the kids color the pages like they normally do.  Then, I glued the pages on the outside of the file folders.  Then, I had to decide...would the kids write the word wall words or should I just give them the lists already printed out.  I'm sure you can guess which one I went with.  So now, I'm just waiting for these babies to be laminated so we can use them.

I love these word walls because:

• They offer privacy during test taking
• They have all sight words/common spelling words students always ask how to spell
• They have some common words, like months and days of the week for students to know how to spell

So anywhos, I hope you like this and hopefully you can use them in your classroom!  This is one of the first times I've used scribd so I'm not sure if you can access it.  Let me know if not! 

Hope everyone has a great weekend!  I'm gearing up for the battle between the hedges... USC vs. Georgia!  Whoop whoop!

P.S.  I thought I'd mention I sat down so excited to write this last night and got to typing and then of course I didn't have the pdf saved on my flash drive!  And my school e-mail wasn't working...so now I'm wondering why I felt the need to share this tidbit of info...I blame it on my sleep deprived self!  Oh that's right...I'm seeing it now..because the beginning of my post is all about tomorrow being Friday...guess I should change that :)