Writing Practice & Letter Identification: Write the Room

Early childhood classrooms are often print rich environments. I had words up all over the place, sight words were on the word wall, we had thematic word posters, words were often added to our bulletin boards. They were in also in our calendar wall, on the alphabet displayed, and on the number line.

A popular center in my kindergarten classroom took advantage of that: Write the Room. The kids get a sheet of paper, clip board, and pencil. Then they go around the classroom and write down the words they see everywhere. At the end of their activity, I'd often come and read their list of words to me.

I made the directed Write the Room sheet shown above. This one was done during November and the students had to find one word in the classroom beginning with each letter and write it next to it. It's very simple to change the word to fit any season, month, or theme. You can also have the students write words that begin with the letter of the week and also do nonstructed Write the Room and just give them a blank sheet of paper and let them go for it.

To change things up a bit some times I'd give the kids markers or colored pencils to write with. Or I might let them wear these fun foam "glasses" I found at the Dollar Store. We also did Read the Room, where they'd go around with little pointers and point to and then read the word aloud to a partner. They'd alternate reading or being read to.

Spotlight Letters was also a popular variation, in this one they'd each take a flashlight and point to a letter to spotlight it before writing it down on their paper. This was often done in conjunction with a letter of the week Write the Room. They'd find our letter of the week anywhere within a word in our room. They'd spotlight it with their flashlight, write it down on their paper, and then circle the spotlight letter.