Charlotte's Web!

Here is another take on a display dedicated to the book Charlotte's Web. You will notice I like to use the same books in class (as they are classics!) which means I have many different displays on the same theme / book.

This display is a combination of the book and the theme of farming which we studied in geography lessons alongside the book. At my school they are keen on having books on shelves and resources displayed on display tables which match the display (to make displays tactile and interactive) so you will see a row of non-fiction books on the windowsill complementing my display. The children love to look and browse through these books to find out facts about what's being studied.

Take a look at this Charlotte's Web display and let me know your thoughts...

The farming section of the display filled with key vocabulary and facts.

The webs!

A close up of an early stage of making Charlotte's web. Above, on the hanging twigs, we extended the spider's web to include 'baby' spiders which the children enjoyed trying to spot when they first saw the display! Using materials like this cotton wool (I picked it up from the Poundshop I think as a Halloween decoration) makes the display tactile and draws the children into touching it and exploring / reading everything else on display. It also looks good to!

Genre Map ~ Key features of text types

One way to help children understand the key features of a text type is to pick texts apart and find them themselves.

As part of shared reading sessions and literacy lessons, at the beginning of studying a new genre, we read lots of good quality examples of that text type and investigate it asking the question 'What makes this a ...?' We do this for both fiction and non-fiction text types.

Once we find out what those key features are, we display them on a genre map on our literacy display. The types of features we are looking for are: content, language, organisation/ layout and the purpose and audience. Of course as teachers, all these key features are in our planning before hand so we know exactly what we want the children to find. You could make it a challenge whereby all the key features are already on cards and they have to find all the answers on the cards by the end of the lesson/week.

I also like to display highlighted and annotated copies of texts on the display that we've explored so the children/ myself can refer back to them when learning/ teaching. The children like to magpie ideas from these too.

Here is my genre map display in the making...

As you can see the display is flexible and handwritten as the key features can be found and added at any time - another look at a literacy working wall really!

Variety of Literacy displays over the years...

Here are a few photos of different Literacy displays from my classrooms over the years! All themed differently and reflecting different topics! Some a celebration of the children's work and some working walls! Please leave a comment to tell me what you think!

Descriptive Writing Display

Themed around describing the haunted house and grave yard!

Adventure Stories Display

Showing the key features of adventure stories as well as examples of adventure stories.

Literacy Working Wall

Fairy Tales and their key features + VCOP.

Magic Box Poems

Creative poems inspired by the Kit Wright poem - The Magic Box.

Diary and Letter Writing

A variety of genres of writing inspired by the book 'Friend or Foe' by Michael Morpurgo.

Spelling washing line

Hanging spelling rules on a washing line to remind children of the rules we are currently learning. Easily accessible and easily referred to in lessons.

Art through Literacy

Children explore the setting in 'Flat Stanley in Space' by creating their own art work of Planet Tyrra.

Before and after: New school, new job, new classroom!

This year I have the pleasure of moving to a new school! I have been promoted to Year 5 and 6 Phase Leader as well as Literacy Leader for the whole school. I am now teaching Year 5 again, an age group I love!

Someone recently asked me on my blog how my classroom looked at the beginning of the year. I was asked if I put up displays or left them blank.

Here are some photos of my classroom when I arrived!

BEFORE:

Well here is my answer!

AFTER:

I back all of my display boards and designate them to particular subjects. I fill the display boards with a variety of things - key information, key vocabulary and expectations of the children's work. I also have a couple of display boards filled with the children's work that they completed with me on 'going up day.' This is nice for the children to see their work on the wall in their new year group in September. Some display boards are deliberately left blank for working walls and usually Art displays which will be filled with the children's work early on in the term.

I think it is really important for the learning environment to be stimulating and inviting at the beginning of term to welcome the children back to school. It also needs to be organised! Here is a photo of how I organise the children's resources on their tables. I show them this picture at the beginning of the term to show them my expectations of keeping their table pots tidy and organised!

Crime Scene Investigation ~ Linked to The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe!

Linked to our book topic of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, I created a crime scene investigation themed lesson. I created a carousel in the classroom where the children had to look at five different pieces of evidence which could point to the possible criminal. They had to scrutinise the evidence and decide at the end which character from the novel was the criminal.

Here are some images of the resources and carousel from the lesson.

I created the image of footprints on the carpet by cutting out footprint shapes out of paper, lying them on the floor and the sprinkling talcum powder over them. Then I lifted off the paper to reveal what looked like footprints in the snow! The children really believed this! 

Here is a photo of the display I created after the lesson celebrating the children's work. From the lesson they had to write a wanted poster for the character in the story which they believed to be the criminal. On the display I included some of the evidence the children had looked at in the lesson. 

The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe!

Here is the development of one of my displays all about our book topic - The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. I have attached a series of images to show how the display developed over time and what the final product looked like!


I started with backing it in a deep blue colour, putting green at the bottom for grass and then adding a black lamp-post in the middle to create a setting in the book as the background to my display.

After that I started to add some of the detail to the setting by using white paint to create the effect of snow. 

Then the children helped me to create snow flakes to add to the display.

Finally I began to add some of the children's work to finish it off. The children loved the display and enjoyed helping paint the characters to go on the main display. I also added photos from the film for the children to visualise the setting and characters in the novel.

Next to the main display I had room to showcase more of the children's work. This included setting descriptions of Narnia and cartoon scripts sequencing the main events in the story. 

This year I have used this book as the basis for my first Literacy unit in Year 5. Rather than creating a display like this, I created a working wall themed around the novel. Take a look at how different this is to my earlier display. This display included quality examples of the children's writing, photos from the film, key vocabulary cards to help their spelling and shared pieces of writing we produced as a class. I also included steps to success for punctuating speech correctly as this was one of my differentiated class targets.

There is a place for both a creative, celebratory style display as well as a working wall in your classroom. It totally depends on what your children need. 

Literacy Working Walls

Here are another few examples of literacy working walls in my Year 3 classroom. 

Here you will see I have included a display about 'Magpieing' - this is where the children read good quality texts, act like magpies and steal the quality vocabulary from it to use later in their own writing. They absolutely love it! This display also acts like a working wall as it changes regularly depending on what unit we are covering!

VCOP

I wanted to create a WOW factor VCOP display to introduce it to the children at the beginning of the year. This is the biggest display I have ever made and the most ambitious I feel! Took me hours to measure out the backing paper and split the board into 4 triangles! 

I have chosen an 'outdoors' theme to my VCOP display! A nice addition to any classroom. Each triangle is dedicated to each part of VCOP and the children love to take a wonder to the VCOP board and find new vocabulary or punctuation to use in their writing! 

Handwriting Display!

To encourage the children to improve their handwriting we hand out pen licences to those who have neat, fluent and joined up handwriting. Here is a photo of my latest handwriting display for those who have received their pen licence recently.

In the background, directly onto the window, I painted lines of the alphabet using joined up writing. This set as a nice background to display their certificates. 

Around the certificates I have included top tips for getting neat handwriting as well as reasons why it is important! The children loved seeing their photograph on display and are very proud of their latest achievement.

Charlotte's Web Enquiry Display

This half term we are studying the novel Charlotte's Web by E.B.White. On display are key extracts and images from the novel showing different parts of the plot. I have included photos of different farm animals found in the book as well as painting my own spiders web! In art the children have created their own spiders web by using straws to blow white paint into a web shape onto black sugar paper. I think this looks particularly effective! 

Along with studying the novel the children are learning all about farming. Here is a photograph of the farming display which includes key information, photographs and key vocabulary. 

For both of these displays I created my own lettering using word art and inserting my own image! 

The Highwayman Literacy Display

Here are some images of my latest literacy display all about the narrative poem The Highwayman. The children produced artwork in the style of Charles Keeping the illustrator and some artwork to represent the metaphors in the poem. This visual display really helped the children remember lines from the poem as well as the metaphors. The children really enjoyed being creative in literacy and seeing their work celebrated on display.

Working Walls - Literacy and Maths

As well as my enquiry (topic) displays and other wider curriculum displays I have two working walls in my classroom - Literacy and Maths. These displays are not put up at the beginning of a unit of work they evolve and develop as the children's work progresses. At the beginning of the unit they often look bare but have key features of the genre or maths unit of work the children are currently working on. Throughout the unit examples of successful work or strategies to solve questions will be displayed as reminders for the children but also as a scaffold.

The children's work is often displayed at different stages of the writing process on my Literacy working wall - from their initial ideas, to mind maps, to first drafts, to final edits and eventually a final and finished presented piece of writing. I often photocopy the children's work and highlight successful use of vocabulary, connectives, openers or punctuation. I will stick post-it notes up around the work highlighting what has been done well. Sometimes I place questions around the work for the other children to answer about how it could be improved. The children really enjoy seeing the working wall evolve during the unit and always come into my class and look straight away at what has been added since their previous lesson. The children also even suggest to me what could be put on the wall to help them.

Maths is more of an interactive display to start with. I will have number of the week up, or shape of the week and the children have to answer the questions around the number or shape using post-it notes to record their answers and ideas. This can be a quick extension activity for the children at the end of a lesson to consolidate their learning. Throughout the unit formulae or important facts or rules are displayed on the working wall as well as examples of successful work. Again this display changes throughout the topic and helps support the teaching in the classroom - I find myself displaying success criteria frequently on my Maths working wall which the children then use at the end of the lesson to assess their work.