Vocabulary Fun!

At my school we use Storytown curriculum for literacy block. Each lesson is six days long and we cover a story, vocabulary, spelling, etc. Today, I want to share one of my vocabulary ideas with you all!

Each week I place our current ten vocabulary words on the front board in my room. I want these words to be front and center for my students to see. At the end of each unit, I place the old words on the vocabulary word wall. The vocabulary word wall holds five weeks worth of vocabulary. The goal of keeping the vocabulary words out even after my students have been tested on them is to make sure they don't forget them after one week. 

My favorite part about my vocabulary board:

Whenever my students use or read one of the vocabulary words that is on the board they get to place their initials on the word card. Students LOVE this and by the time the words are removed from our word wall they are covered with student names. 

A few changes I am going to make next year:

1) Hopefully my UGLY brown storage cart will be replaced with cabinets so that I can put my word wall on a cute bulletin board instead of an ugly brown cabinet.

2) I have laminated all of the vocabulary words and students will initial their name using a thin expo marker so that I can erase and reuse each year.

My students LOVED our vocabulary board & they all got very involved in using & looking for the words in their books. I found this to be a useful way to keep students using vocabulary words and it didn't take any time on my part. Students were responsible for initialing when they found/used a word. (Students always ran up & showed me their vocabulary word when they found it in a book.) 

I hope someone can find this idea useful or helpful!

How do you reinforce vocabulary in your classroom?