Back To School Writing Centers, Word Wall Binders, and Blog Hop

First, I've linked up with Tori's Teacher Tips for a bloglovin' blog hop.  As many of you know, Google Reader is disappearing and although I liked it (a lot), I've found that I like bloglovin' even more.  With bloglovin' I can see all of the blog posts that I haven't read yet and click through them one by one while going to each page I follow.  It's really user friendly and easy to understand.   Check it out here!!

I have been working hard on writing centers for next year.  I really felt like this was a weakness of mine last year and although my students still did really well overall, it is something I've wanted to work on for this year.  Throughout the year my class would create topic word walls for the themes we were working on but after that week/month/unit, the word wall would come down for another theme to use that space.  I really felt that I wanted something the students could have at their desk to use all year long so I'm creating "Word Wall Binders" for this year.  Each of my students will have a binder that will contain every word wall from each theme that we cover throughout the year.  I hope that this helps with spelling and vocabulary issues while writing.  

Here's an example of a student word wall page for their binder:

Most themes will have 12 words which will easily fit front and back on one sheet of paper.  I've also made them grayscale so that it doesn't use all of my color ink.  

Along with student word wall binders, I will continue to have our themed word walls using color versions of the same pictures.  These will be used during our study of the theme.

Also included in each writing center kit are three writing prompts on lined paper.  I have created some with grayscale pictures and some with no pictures at all so that the teacher can choose which they want to use.  This will be placed in the writing center each week in our classroom.  

If you are interested in purchasing this Back To School Writing Center Kit, click on the picture below and it will take you straight to my TPT store.

I have themes planned throughout the year that are mostly based on our reading series and what we are studying that week but I do have a few open weeks.  What themes do you use in your classroom?  What are some other themes that you may not see all that often?