Word Nerds Book Study Part 5 & A Giveaway

Chapter 5- Active Vocabulary Practice 

Are y'all ready for my thoughts on Chapter 5 of Word Nerds: Teaching All Students to Learn and Love Vocabulary. Make sure you stop by Leslie Ann's Life in Fifth Grade to see her thoughts.

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Remember the last post when I said that Chapter 4 is where it really gets going.... I wasn't joking. Chapter 5 is even more jam packed with awesome ideas to inspire even the most reluctant teacher to create word nerds in their classroom. These are things you can do as a whole class to "jazz up" the dreaded vocabulary instruction. Here are a couple of my favorite activities/ideas from this chapter. 

Student Vocabulary Charades 

Students work together in small groups to plan and act out the definition of a term. The students are up and moving, and the whole class is engaged and discussing vocabulary.... Does it get any better than this?!

Chain Link

Students create a human concept map to show how the words are connected. Each student has a word (the book uses lanyards- see Leslie's post for some great ones on Amazon) and they volunteer to connect their word to another students. This happens until the whole class is connected in one long chain. The book recommends holding off on this activity until towards the end of the study or cycle, so that students are more familiar with the terms and their meanings. Again the students are up and moving, and the whole class is engaged and discussing vocabulary.... Does it get any better than this?!

Word Colors 

The student reads a word and thinks about it's meaning. They then decide on a color they feel represents the word and color the word card. Students are using higher order thinking, and being very creative. An example from the book.... "I think black for swift because I think of a Ninja." 

The photo above came from 4th Grade Frolics post all about Word Nerds! Go check it out, she has great ideas and images too! 

As you may have already noticed, I'm missing a few entries. Well, life always seems to throw curve balls your way... even when you are not expecting them. I have been EXTREMELY busy working on an unexpected and huge masters project. Trying to juggle that with school quickly approaching and I have been overwhelmed. However, Leslie and I told you we would be having a giveaway..... so enter the giveaway below and stay tuned for my make up entries on Chapters 6, 7, & 8 :) 

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