Vocab help

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Archive : 2007 : July : 25

Vocab help
By VCUTeach

I do quite a bit with vocab too. I have a few games that were inspired by Kagan strategies. My version- Vocabulary Freeze- I use sentence strips and write brief definitions of the vocab we are currently studying. I give the
kids the words (printed off computer, index cards, cut up sentence strips, whatever is easier) Once I give them the word they move anywhere in the room. When I say MIX, they move around the room quielty and switch with whomever they pass. Then I will say FIND. They have to find the deffinition of the word that they now have and FREEZE in to a pose by the deffinition. They can not talk

or move until I move to them. I act like I have a magic spray and pretend to unfreeze them. Usually there is more than one student at a spot so I point to who gets to talk. I say WORD and the student says the word. I point again and say DEFFINITION and the other student read the deffinition. I freeze them back when they are done. We do this multiple times so that the kids get more than one word. They come back to me and give me their word. I hand them out again. To aviod the " I already had this one!" thing I tell them to simply raise their hand and I would know what the signal meant.
You can mix this up and use clues, fill in the blank sentences, post the words and give the deffinition, etc.
I also use MIX FREEZE PAIR. It is fairly similar to Vocabulary Freeze except some students have the deffinition and some have the word. They mix like above, freeze when I say freeze and then without talking find the person who has the match. They then have to freeze or strike a pose and I do the same as above. I tried these without the freeze/strike a pose thing and of course the kids would be distracted/talking/etc while you are working with another group. At least this way even if they are distracted they are not being a distraction to others who are paying attention. I love these kinds of things because it allows them to get up and move!! They love it too!
I also have on a large wall in my room a WORDS TO REMEMBER WALL. Here I have a spot for math words, science words, ss words, and LA words. After a unit in any of the subjects I post the most important vocabulary(just the word). It gets added to like a regular word wall for high freqency words. We play mystery word and guess my word. Things like that. It is nice to use when you have a few minutes before lunch or before the buses get there. I like it because we are constantly having conversations throughout the year about words we used in Sept. Anyway, I know I rambled! I hope you got some good ideas. These are just a few things that I do, but some of my favorite. Enjoy! :)