I started thinking that if a word wall was going to be useful to students and actually improve their spelling, it needed to be grouped by spelling patterns, rather than alphabetically. That or it could be used as a "no excuse words" wall to hold students accountable to spelling some words correctly. I wasn't consistent enough with posting words regularly for it to be effective at holding students accountable. I also found that I wanted it to help students with vocabulary, though it provided no supports to help students remember the meaning of words.
Then, I saw (somewhere on Pinterest) that someone had made a Greek/Latin root wall. This idea has been floating in the back of my mind for months. We just started studying roots and affixes in class and the students are really into it! They are finding these roots and affixes all around them, in their books, in our science readings, in our read-aloud book, in their math texts, etc. Whenever they can define a word based on its roots they get excited and have to announce it. :)
I decided that the best way to keep roots fresh in their mind as we continue to add new roots to our repertoire, is to continue looking for the older roots in the world around us. On a whim, I made this root/affix wall after school today. The white cards have the root and the meaning. The colored cards are blank for students to add examples of words that use each root. My intention is for this to be an interactive bulletin board where students can add words they find to the cards under the root that the word uses. (Of course, students will probably have to stand on a chair to reach most of the cards because this is my only available, but least accessible, bulletin board) The example cards are thumbtacked so students can take them down to write on them.
