PreK Word Books ~ Word Wall Alternative

I have very little wall space available in my classroom to make a functional word wall.  I wanted something on the children's eye level that they can interact with, add new words to and easily read the words that are on it. To meet these requirements I believe you need to have pictures next to the words for preschoolers, which takes up even more space.

So this year I decided to start making word books.

I originally thought of the traditional laminated pages to make our books, but then ran across some small dollar store picture albums that I already had on hand.

Homework bags brought in all of the material to make our book so all I had to do was add  the pictures and items to index cards then label each one before inserting it into the photo page.

Our class homework each Wednesday is based on a letter or our theme. Children are to bring in items to share with the class that start with a certain letter. These items can be drawn, cut from magazines, pictures or actual items. So for the letter R this week we had a wide variety of items including stuffed rabbits, red race cars, rocks, rice and lots more. I always send all of the items back home (taking pictures of items as needed), but keep artwork and magazine pictures to make our books.

These are so much better than word walls for my preschoolers because they can search through the books until they find the word they want to write, open the book right beside their paper on the table and begin copying the word. This method is much easier than with the words on the wall, which is often no where near a table.

The kids also like the fact that these are the pictures they brought to school.  Having ownership in the project will give them some encouragement to share their pictures with their classmates.

Word books can of course can be used in your classroom library as well, but I really like them in the writing center. As we get more made I may put some of them in a basket and move them to the library. The kids could still get them out of the basket and take them to the table to write.

Lots of possibilities... (: