The Gap-FIller Fairy

Word walls can be very ineffective ways of decorating the room.  For most may students, the word wall is just a bunch of words that the teacher decides to put on a wall. But what if it could be more? Enter, the Interactive Word-Wall Slider! This is a pretty quick way to reinforce vocabulary words.  There are dozens of uses for this little paper gadget. Here are just a few ways to use the interactive word wall sliders: - Young Presenters - Allow students to randomly select a word from a future lesson, and give them at least a week to spend learning all they can about that word. The following week, have each student present their slider to the class. If it's too small, try using a doc-cam! - Fast Finishers, Go! - Whenever students finish ahead of the class, have them find new words that interest them and then create a slider to share with the class. - Guess My Word: In this game, the whole class can work in groups or inde...

Once upon a time, a terrible kingdom of monsters, called The Gaps, terrorized classrooms across the land of Excellandia.  These wicked creatures would chew on holes into the students' understanding of foundational concepts.  Each time a teacher would attempt to build on to that foundational concept, the students' understanding would collapse into an academic abyss.  The result would be a portal from which poured impaired performance, low-self esteem and a skewed self-perception. The teachers tried so many ways to battle these gaps, but many of the students would suffer so severely that their entire lives were impacted.  Many of those students were resilient individuals who achieved great things in life despite their early academic setbacks. This broke the hearts of the teachers as well. One of the teachers was named Belle.  Belle was a happy teacher who ADORED her students very much.  She loved to try and fill up the gaps in students' knowledge.  But...