Chapter 7: Spreading Vocabulary Wings

Don't you just love the book Miss Alaineus: A Vocabulary Disaster?  It's one of our mentor texts in 5th grade.  The kids love it!

 

 The book is a fun introduction to the importance of vocabulary instruction.  On the other hand, it also illustrates how useless it can be to simply look up words and write out definitions.  That's what I love about Word Nerds!  The authors give us exactly what we need for vocabulary instruction.  I was amazed at how my summer school class could spend an hour on vocabulary!  Who would have dreamed an hour of vocabulary instruction would go by so quickly.

 

As with the entire book, reading about how to extend vocabulary with "morphology" was an "ahh-haa" moment .  I ordered the book, Cryptomania! Teleporting into Greek and Latin with the CryptoKids from Amazon.com (This book was discussed on page 100) Each year, we study affixes in 5th grade.  I'm always looking for fun ways to improve this lesson and how to apply it throughout the school year.  This is an important component to vocabulary and learning how to chunk words. 

Once I had the opportunity to look at the book, I think it will work out well with a vocabulary station during Guided Reading.  I love the world of resources we live in!

 

The shaded section in this chapter provided some wonderful fiction books that can be useful in vocabulary instruction.  Since I wasn't familiar with all of the selections, I went to visit our ELA Coach.  Thankfully, she had several of the books listed and I checked them out from her library.  With only a few more weeks before school starts, I wanted to create helpful activites for students to complete during Guided Reading or Writing Workshop.  The book offers some great suggestions for books such as 13 Words by Lemony Snicket, Detective LaRue: Letters from the Investigation by Mark Teague, and June 29, 1999 by David Weisner.

 



After reading this chapter, it was necessary to makee a few minor changes to the Vocabulary Sheet. I would love to post it on here as a freebie, but as a new blogger, I can't figure out how to post it unless it is a picture. 

 

I also look forward to creating our Vocabulary Folders.  My vision includes a paper folder ($0.15 at WalMart) with a fun cover laminated on top. Using the Vocabulary Planner provided in Appendix A, our team can begin the small task of providing words for our first quarter selection.  We will want to alphabetize each word sheet as we go and possibly use different color paper for each subject area. 

 

Isn't this fun?  What ideas do you have?



Chapter 6: Celebrate to Validate

Classroom Celebrations

 

Yes, knowing you are out there reading the book and the blog, I want to hear from you. :) Chapter 6 is a fun chapter, but I'm not sold that games from chapter 5 and celebrations from chapter 6 are BOTH necessary components of vocabulary instruction.  It seems a bit redundant. 

Many of the celebration games in this chapter sound like fun.  Deal or No Deal, Jeopardy, Charades, even the block party bring fun, laughter, and repetition to vocabulary instruction.  Yet, does it need to be a separate piece to the Word Nerds?  Time is precious in the classroom.  Is this something you will use?

It wouldn't take much to add these games into the form for games from chapter 5.  These games are definitely whole group and wouldn't be used in small groups...
Someone, try and sell this one on me!



A Look Back at Chapter 2

Popsicle Sticks

 

 

Did you catch the wonderful idea on multiple ways to instantly group students?  It's on page 28!  Using Popsicle sticks, I painted 5 groups of sticks with 5 different colors.  Each group of sticks contains the numbers 1-5 on the top, and 5 different shapes on the bottom.  The middle of the stick contains 5 different designs made with pattern tape.  This allows me to ask students to group by stick color, by number, by shape, or by pattern.  I'm loving this quick grouping pattern.

 

If I were to make the sticks again, (and I might) I would color the sticks with color markers instead of paint.  I would use duck tape instead of tape that can easily be picked off.  (I'm going to try Modge Podge before giving up on the current set.)

 

Did anyone else pick-up on this idea?  I'd love to see a picture of what you created!



Chapter 5: Active Vocabulary Practice

Summer activities are catching up with me; I haven't posted the chapters on time like I wanted to do.  Yet, I've already read the entire book.  It's such a fun and easy read! :)  Blogging makes me go back and review and re-new my notes. 

Chapter 5 is full of active games for building vocabulary you've covered in class.  We practiced a few of these in summer school.  Even games I thought sounded a little cheesy...the kids really enjoyed!

While reviewing the games, I wanted to come up with a quick reference guide to help me remember the games when lesson planning throughout the school year.  Eventually, I simply tabbed my book and gave up on the idea.  Yet...(drum roll), the blog Fourth Grade Flipper came up with a beautiful quick reference sheet!

There are two pages to her masterpiece!  Go to her blog for a free download!  You can find it here! 

You will also find other wonderful ideas from her blog.  I will post her blog shortcut on the sidebar with other wonderful blogs you can access.

The summer is flying by...my own personal timeline gives me only two more weeks before I start back to work.  Where does the time fly?  Yet, I am thankful for the time to refresh, reflect, and learn new ideas for the classroom.  Our instructional coach, Mrs. Daniels, came in and met with me yesterday to show me how to create a Prezi.  It was an idea someone posted in the blog world, to use with the Word Nerds instructional pieces.  Thanks, Mrs. Daniels, it looks like something I can easily and quickly use for our classroom.  I can't wait for time to sit down and play with it.

On another note, I know there are several of us reading Word Nerds this summer.  I'm looking forward to reading your comments!  :)

Chapter 4: Juicy Words!

Posting for this chapter was a little like deja vu.  For the past three years, I've used a similar system in the classroom.  From the beginning of the school year, students are encouraged to post on our interactive word bulletin board. 

          Good          Super        Dynamite           Antonyms
          dream        desire         aspire               hopeless 


Using pre-cut sentence strips, the students would find words to fit the columns.  The goal was to find "dynamite" words from our reading to use in our writing.  This was a lot like finding "Velcro and Juicy Words". 

One of our classroom discussion this summer included when to use various levels of vocabulary.  For example, when explaining things to a first grader, we wouldn't use a lot of dynamite words.  It would be much like a doctor going home and talking to his family using large medical terms.  A sign of mastery in vocabulary is to know when and how to use it.

Many of the students in class this summer went home to discuss new words with their parents/grandparents.  It was great to hear about the discussions that the kids brought home.  As the author suggested, I plan to keep a list of our vocabulary words to publish in our weekly newsletter. 

What areas of the reading caught your attention?  What do you plan to improve upon or implement in your classroom next year?  I'd love to hear your ideas!

(Intermission)

YIPPEE!  Yes, it finally arrived!  I've been waiting since the 19th of June, the day I ordered online.  It felt like a gift for me (lol) from me.

I don't remember where I found out about Erin Condrin teacher planners...it was on a blog somewhere.  Once I looked into it, I was hooked.  :) 

It came yesterday!  I couldn't wait to open the box.  Yet, I sat down to savor the moment. Once the packaging tape was cut free, I carefully and slowly opened the box and found pretty, delicate wrapping paper with a welcome seal. 

There it is!  My planner, my grade book, my yearly calendar, ...my great book for organizing my school year!  It even came with complimentary gift labels. 

Just in case you haven't heard of Erin Condrin teacher planners; click here to find a link.

Chapter 3: Making Introductions

While reading our book, I keep imagining a vocabulary center/literature group center.  Wouldn't these be cute?  I could also include activities in each crate. It's something I could think about anyway!

Maybe for the writing center, we could have activities put in this handy paper towel holder using rings and card stock.

A thought for vocabulary journals might be "Mini journals"!  Reportedly, Office Max will cut these in half for you.  The adapted Frayer model template from our book would fit in here nicely!

Reading A to Z books are great resources for reading, science, and history.  Laminated covers help them last longer yet I wonder if it individual copies to write in are better for students. 

(Please note, the pictures above were taken from Pinterest, they are not my pictures.)
 
Summer school was the perfect growing space for me to put into practice the instructional strategies from chapter 3.  It was fun to grow into the daily practice of vocabulary and watch the students grow into "Word Nerds".  (The kids love the term and actually brag about becoming a "word nerd".)

Using a Reading A to Z book we were going to read on week 3, I began choosing vocabulary words that were embedded in the non-fiction story.  Words such as "dictator", "oppression", and "repertoire" were chosen for our first week.  


As Margot suggested, we started with a cloze sentence activity.  I posted the sentence on a sentence strip with the vocabulary word missing, a underline served in its place. Using "heads together", I asked the kids to brainstorm words that could be used in the blank.  We listed those words on the board under the sentence and discussed the part of speech the word might be...noun, verb, adjective, adverb.  

After small group and class discussion (drum roll...) came the unveiling of our vocabulary word.  At this point, the students recorded the vocabulary word and the part of speech.  It was a challenge to get the students to record the word spelled correctly from the board.  Maybe it was due to the fact the class feels they are on summer break, I don't know, but we then began peer-checking each others paper for the correct spelling of the vocabulary term.  

Using the smart board, we looked for the word definition on Merriam Websters web page.  The class read the definition as  a group and discussed it as a group.  Looking at the words we listed that could be used in our cloze sentence, we noted which words could be synonyms to the vocabulary word and which ones could be antonyms.  

 Using a vocabulary sheet that Angela Drake and I created, the kids recorded information in their vocabulary journal.  If you'd like a copy of the journal page, email me :)


On day 2, the students worked on drawing a picture of the word and creating a sentence using the word in their journal.  This was a great time for the kids to review and discuss the word again.  

Reviewing chapter 3 now, after I've read it and practiced it, I realize that wasn't exactly how Margot practiced it in her classroom.  Yet, it worked really well for me.  How do you see it working in your classroom? 

I need to revamp it to include syllabication skills when looking for the root or affixes on the word.  I also inadvertently left out the activity with matching the vocabulary word to the definition.  I feel like this could be part of a center activity. 

Although this seems like a large amount of time that we don't have for daily routine, it really excited the students to learn and use the vocabulary.  It was time well spent!  Who knew that we could spend more than a few minutes discussing a vocabulary word?  This was more time than I had ever given to vocabulary.