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.

Progress Display

Progress and attainment - always tricky to get the children to connect with and understand it. This year I have created a 'progress' display where I will be able to visually record the children's progress in Reading, Writing and Maths in relation to 'sub-levels'. I have included 3 jumps on my display to reflect aspirational progress of 3 sub-levels progress over the year (E.g. moving from a 3b to 4b).

I have included three jumps for each subject and for each subject the children have their own name label with their starting level on at the bottom. They will be able to see their progress on the display as well as be able to tell me and other adults what their target levels are by using the progress ladder at the top. 

The children will have a greater awareness of their starting levels and their responsibility to make progress over the year. Later on in the year I will post other photos showing how the display changes over time. I intend to update the children's journey on the progress path at key assessment points throughout the year. Who will leave the year having made the most progress?

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. 

Learning Zones!

This is something I have trialled in my Year 3 class this year and it is fantastic! 

We call it 'The Understanding Egg!' This represents the different zones to learning within a lesson or over a topic. The middle of the egg represents confidence and full knowledge and capability. The white part represent trickyness where work may seem difficult and they need more help. The silver part represents the frying pan which is the 'panic zone'! At the beginning of the topic I tell the children the desired learning outcome (like writing their own mythical story!) and they have to write their name on a post-it and stick it in one of the learning zones. This is an excellent tool for self assessment which is very visual for the children and the teacher - immediately you can see who is panicking and who will need that extra bit of support to get going. Thoughout the lesson or topic I ask the children if they would like to move their name. The children are so good at using this as a self evaluation tool that they jump up in class and move their name without even asking! Independent learning here we come! Then at the end of the lesson or topic just before we complete the desired outcome I ask them if they would like to move their name for a final time. This is quite powerful as now we can discuss the movement in the zones and how some children are much more comfident now than they were at the beginning. 

This is a photo of my egg at different points in our literacy topic when the children at the end of the two weeks were going to write their own myth. Take a look at the movement in their names! 

Before

During

After

Ideally we do not want any children in the panic zone, especially at the end of the unit where we are hoping they have learnt everything they need to be successful. But by picking those children up after I have marked their work to actually show how good their work was was quite powerful. One child actually said 'I didn't need to panic did I Miss?' 

Try it in your classroom and see the benefits!

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! 

Writing Reminders!

Stuck to the side of my whiteboard I have writing reminders! These are to help the children self check their work when they are finished. My general WILF for any long piece of writing! The children know what the symbols mean and I use these in my marking! 

A . - capital letters and full stops

WOW - adjectives

and - connectives

ly - adverbs

abc - joined up neat handwriting

thinking face - does my sentence make sense?

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.

Treasure Island Classroom Display

An old classic novel studied by my class as part of a literacy unit of work. The theme of islands permeated throughout the curriculum and the children learnt all about real and fictional islands. Here are some displays as part of this topic.

 

 

Again post-it notes were used as a form of assessment as was the KWL grid. The children's writing was also displayed on the enquiry board as shining examples of successful and imaginative writing.

Handwriting Display

To motivate the children to improve their handwriting we introduced pen licences. The children had to use joined up fluent handwriting to be awarded a pen and certificate. The children could use their pen for whatever written work they liked (usually not maths) but could only keep the licence if they continued to use joined up neat and fluent handwriting across all curriculum subjects. The children felt very proud to earn the licence and badges were given out for the children to wear around the school if they wished. Photographs of the children who were awarded the pen licences were put on the handwriting display along with their certificates.  Examples of children's work which met the criteria for the pen licence was displayed on the board for the children to see what they were working towards. This had a marked impact on the children's handwriting and this reward system has now been implemented throughout school from Years 2 - 6.

Targets Display - Reading, Writing and Maths

All schools and classes have particular targets to work towards. As a teacher there is a lot of pressure to ensure the children in your class know their personal targets and how they can achieve them. I came up with a 'rocket' themed target display/concept to help the children remember their target. Lower ability children were on 'Ready' targets, middle ability children were on 'Steady' targets, higher ability children were on 'Go' targets and gifted and talented children were on 'Blast off!' targets. The children could remember which stage of the rocket taking off they were and as their targets for Reading, Writing and Maths were displayed around the target rocket, the children could find their target easily. A simple concept which worked really well.

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.

Dinosaurs Classroom Display

Here are some photos of the first display I created in a Year 1 classroom as a teaching student during my school based teaching practise. The idea was to make it as exciting and engaging as possible for the children but also interactive. The display changed over the course of the topic and as the children's writing developed their work was pegged up on the display. This display also incorporated photographs of the children hard at work and also books and tactile objects were displayed which were suited to the topic for the children to explore - e.g. dinosaur bones which we found in the school grounds! The children also enjoyed creating the giant dinosaur for the display using paint and other materials.

The children's writing was pegged onto a strip of ribbon stapled to the wall.

Material was used as part of the display to another another tactile element to it, as well as being a colourful finishing touch!

 

Books displayed at the bottom of the display for the children to read in choosing time or to take home and share with their parents.