Sparkling Vocabulary

I wanted to share an idea I heard about this summer (from where, I'm not sure.  If you know, let me know so I can give credit).  I've always had a WOW board where we would post special higher level vocabulary words.  WOW stood for Wonderful Outstanding Words.  I would post the words as we heard them in our stories and then if the kids could use them correctly in conversation, they would get to put a sticker on the word.  The challenge was to see how many words we could get stickers on.

Well, this summer, I saw the idea for a Sparkling Vocabulary board.  Rather than calling them WOW words, we now call them Sparkling Words.  Then, I thought it would be cool to make a title for our board with some sparkle on it (I mean, who doesn't love glitter?).  So, I tried to make my own:

It's hard to tell in this picture, but I put a border of glitter around the letters.  Ok, but not great.

So I went on the hunt for something better and found these at Dollar General:

Oh yeah - these will be much better!  So I put these sheets through the Ellison machine and got this:

Much better (and very sparkly)!

 

So, the plan is to still put the sparkling words on cards and allow the kids to put a sticker on the card when they are able to use it in conversation.  The new idea I found this summer was when they were able to use the word correctly in their writing, they would get one of these on their paper:

(sorry for the blurry pic - had to take it with my phone)

These are sticky back gems.  Unfortunately, I was only able to find pink and white, so the boys will have to deal with those right now.  I'll try to go this weekend and find different colors.  I'm hoping that this will inspire the kids to try to use some enriched vocabulary in their speaking and writing. 

I hope this is an idea you might be able to use in your room.  If you do, let me know how it goes!