Vocabulary activities

[Gail Hennessey]

As a social studies teacher, I utilized a few vocabulary activities to help teach the terminology.
1. HISTO- The students place words in a grid(ie: Tic Tac Toe) of 9 or 16 and I then say the definition of the posted words. The first student(students) to get the words across, down or diagonally, to stand and say HISTO, would have to state the word and its meaning. Winners got tickets to use towards less homework, candy treats, ice cream , free book , etc.
2. BLUFF- Students are divided into two teams. A word would be defined. Those that know the answer stand. Those that don't and wish to "bluff" the answer can stand, too. A student is called on to give the definition. If correct, the number of points of students standing is awarded(or deducted if the person called doesn't know the answer).
3. BACK WORDS- A voc. term is placed on the back of each student. They then circulate around the room asking YES or NO questions of others to "guess" the word on their back.
4. CONCENTRATION- like the old game. Small groups are given a list of voc. words and a list of meanings They shuffle the words on a desk face down and then take turns trying to match the word and its definition.
5. DRAW a Word- Students use a word, ie: Open door policy when studying China and try to illustrate the word with a picture.

I'd love to hear from teachers with other voc. activities which they use in their classrooms.
Best,
Gail Hennessey
http://www.gailhennessey.com

[Telly]

You need to buy "Once Upon a Time Words: Definitions of Often Read but Seldom Spoken Words". IT is great for vocabulary and literature. Oh, the author is Nanette Avery. Go to Borders or Amazon on-line.

[Unregistered]

Hello,

I'm a Spanish teacher (first year) and I found ur vocab activities and they sound great! I would love to try the BLUFF game, I was just in need of finding fun learning activities, glad I came across ur post!

[Unregistered]

Thanks for the great vocab ideas. I was just in search of some ways to make vocab lessons and activities more fun. Can't wait to try your ideas.

[gavint]

There are some great ideas in this book, 30 Ideas for Teaching Writing (http://www.writingproject.org/cs/nwpp/print/nwpr/922), including idea #5, which is taken from an article titled "Visualizing Vocabulary (http://www.writingproject.org/pub/nwpr/quarterly/Q2002no3/simmons.html)," by Eileen Simmons.

[Mike]

I have a friend who uses foam flyers in an activity.

He tapes 3x5 cards to half of the fliers with a vocabulary word on each one.

He then plays music for a 20-30 seconds while the kids toss the flyers around.

When the music stops, he puts them in groups of 3-4. They then have to discuss the words on the flyers they have. Since there are different colored flyers, there are a bunch of different other things he does with them. Find someone with another red flyer, put the words on one color, and the definitions on another etc.

(This works for facts etc too!)

Note: Have the kids make the 3x5 cards. It'll be faster and you'll be getting them engaged and writing the words/definitions themselves.

He got his flyers at that www.EverythingAboutLearning.com site.

http://www.everythingaboutlearning.com/index.php?p=product&id=40738

Mike

[labooks]

Here is an online lesson plan which is an easy, enjoyable way to teach vocabulary.

A good way to improve long term memory is to associate previous knowledge to new learning.

Children often learn songs without knowing several of the words. They are using the words correctly in the songs (previous knowledge) but they don't know the meanings (new learning). Remember Beverly Cleary's Ramona in her misunderstanding of "The Star-spangled Banner?" She asked her sister to turn on the dawnzer to get some light. I can imagine Ramona singing loudly and proudly, "Oh say, can you see by the dawnzer, lee light." The details are in Ramona the Pest by Beverly Cleary.

Children often make mistakes when supplying meaning from context clues. Some children have never seen sheaves of wheat. More than one adult has told me they used personal experiences with sheets on the clothesline to supply meaning in a hymn as they sang: "We shall come rejoicing bringing in the sheets." Humm. So much for comprehension!

The Musical Vocabulary Lesson (http://www.learningbooks.net/xLPvocabulary.html) uses three verses of "The Star-spangled Banner" to teach vocabulary and history. Young children can improve vocabulary, increase comprehension, and learn a little about history. Much later, this would enable them to recognize words like twilight, perilous, ramparts, and gallantly which might be on the SAT.

The lesson also has instructional steps for making this activity enjoyable and of lasting benefit. Teachers and parents are encouraged to select other songs which children know without really understanding all of the words. The site has many lessons for learning how to learn and to remember.

I developed this when working as a counselor/school psychologist in an elementary school. We did it in first through fifth grades selecting different familiar songs for the different grades.

Betsy Lee

[tomdei]

Here is a great idea for vocabulary. This site has a free online hangman game that lets the teachers enter their own words for the game. It even accepts a lot of the Latin international characters so you can do foreign languages as well.

http://www.wordduck.com

Check it out :)

[tsmama24]

Vocabulary.co.il (http://www.vocabulary.co.il/)has a fantastic variety of vocabulary games. And there are hundreds of vocab topics to choose from. These aren't "dumbed down" games, either. They are really sophisticated learning activities.

[Alur]

There are some cool games for learning vocabulary at http://englishflashgames.blogspot.com (check them out, they are so funny!)

[stevejackson]

There are some cool games for learning vocabulary at http://englishflashgames.blogspot.com (check them out, they are so funny!)

This link is really useful. Thanks for posting.

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Check Grammar, Spelling or Style and Enhance It!
English Software.org/ (http://www.englishsoftware.org/) | Grammar Software (http://www.englishsoftware.org/)

[edelight]

http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=4506

is a nice site for vocabulary activities and printouts for them too!grades 3-8

[nievesalvarez]

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