Our school and school board loves to see bump it up wall in our classroom. For it to be useful for our kindergarten students, they need to be able to understand how and when to use them. This is a skill that has to be taught over time, and so we like to make our Bump It Walls cooperatively. Here is what our math and literacy walls look like:

Math Bump It Up Wall

With our recent patterning unit, we were working on making sure we identified the rule, the core and made complex patterns. We used pictures from students’ work that we took during center time and projected them to the class. Then students gave ideas on how the work could be made better.

I typed up what they said, and put it up on our wall to correspond to our four levels. This way, students could reference the examples when they were doing their own patterning work during center time.

Writing Bump It Wall

We followed a similar approach when making our writing wall. We picked 4 writing samples that students had done in class, and had students discuss how their work could be improved.

Side Note- When having these discussions with our students, we always praise their work to begin with and talk about all the things they did well. We usually say something like, “Your picture is beautiful, I love the way you added detail to the sky. What are some of the ways that you think you can do an even better job next time?” We frequently talk about how we are in kindergarten to learn and we are here to do our best. We never want a student to think they have ‘failed’, or didn’t do the best they could!

We added writing checklists to hooks underneath the samples so that students can grab the sheet and check their work. We can also circle or highlight areas that we think students can improve on in their writing. We typically use these during guided writing groups.

If you would like a copy of the checklist, I have added it to my Resource Library as a free download!