How to Be ... From A to Z

I'm always looking for interesting ways to teach about kindness, respect, honesty, and having good values, so I decided I would use the letters of the alphabet to spell words to help teach these values. It's all about positive thinking, and having the words visible and colourful helps send that message every day.

The first step was to have my room painted!

My dull looking room before the project.

A little colour brightens it up!

Once I purchased the wooden letters (I found them on Etsy), I met with my grade 6 students and explained the project to them. They randomly selected a letter and had to come up with a motivational word for that letter. Once they chose their word, they had to submit a design for their letter. I made sure that the designs were not similar in pattern or colour so that the finished project would have the desired effect.

Sample letters in progress ...

"Y" for yourself.

"S" for studious.

Each letter was protected with varathane.

Once the students were finished painting their letter, they had to come up with two ways on how to be the word that they chose. These suggestions were printed on a poster which I hung next to their words.

The poster not only shows ways on being the word,
but also gives credit to the artists of each letter.

I traced and cut the letters out of newspaper flyers then attempted to place the letters on my wall so they would fit. Once the design was set, I projected the words onto the wall and used a template to help maintain an even spacing and size for the words. The words were painted on with paint pens.

My attempt at finding the best layout.

Using a template made the job that much easier to paint the words.

Once all of the letters were painted and protected with varathane and the remaining letters in the word were painted on the wall, I attached the wooden letters in their place using two way tape.

I get to look at this beautiful wall everyday!

Students are often caught reading the words, using them to check their spelling, or checking out the ways to be marvelous or kind.