How To Create an Interactive 3D Word Wall Display

You know you’re a teacher when you get your best teaching ideas from the most random places. Recently, for me, it was the grocery store! The inspiration: a pack of mini cereal boxes. The idea: a 3-dimensional “RIP DEAD WORDS” word wall display!

Learn how to make a 3D interactive word wall for 'dead words'.

Talk about spicing up your word wall… AND students’ vocabulary… all at the same time. I never knew it was possible to fall in love with a word wall… but ♥ I’M IN LOVE ♥. SO incredibly in love with how the word wall display turned out!!

Here’s how to do it:

Cover your board with black cloth or construction paper. I saw some cool material with spider webs on it but I still ended up using black because it just makes the tombstones pop!

You will need 3 sets of Fun Pack Cereal boxes. 

how to create an interactive word wall

Paint the sides and cut off the tabs (you can also just tuck the tabs inside the box, but I like how clean it looks when snipped off). Then, glue the tombstones onto the painted cereal boxes and VOILA: 

Said is dead.

 Decide on whether you’ll put the foldables or cards inside the tombstones.

Learn how to make a 3D interactive word wall. Over 700 synonyms for overused words!

Attach your boxes onto your bulletin board! Below, I stapled the first two boxes and tried a push pin for the third box – both work fine!

How to create a 3D interactive word wall.

If you don’t have space for a word wall display, the tombstones would also look cool sitting on the ledge of your black board! What do you think?

You can also create a 3D interactive word wall, without boxes, by using the tombstones as pockets. Just staple around the edges (except the top) and you will still get that 3D look!

Or if 2D is more your game, you can simply staple the tombstones flat and use a push pin to hang the synonym booklets, just under the RIP part. This option allows students to easily see which booklets are in use. 

You can manage the 3D interactive tombstones in a similar way by writing a cute message like this:

Dead words being resurrected.

When a student grabs a booklet from inside the box, they simply flip the tag over to let other students know it’s in use. Cute, right?

This gruesome hand not only adds a fun element to the word wall – it also reminds students to reach inside for those descriptive words when they are writing!

How to create a 3D interactive word wall for overused "dead words"!

You will notice that the tombstones and mini books are based on THE 5 SENSES + EMOTIONS because I find that when students describe the look, smell, taste, sound or feel of an object, it just catapults their writing to a whole new level. Using precise vocabulary to describe emotions helps students add ‘voice’ to their writing!If you want your students to expand their vocabulary, you can download the complete set HERE.

It includes an interactive notebook; foldable books; both small and large cards; tombstones; and a small & large hand.  There are OVER 700 descriptive words in this set!!

You can also try a FREE sample HERE {or click the image below}.

A blog post on how to create a 3D interactive word wall for overused 'dead' words. Includess a FREE sample for "said"

Said is dead booklet filled with numerous synonyms for "said".

I hope this will help inspire your students to SPICE UP their writing!!! May you never see a DEAD (boring, overused, tired) word in your students’ writing EVER again!! Let those dead words rest in peace 😉

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