Bringing Vocabulary Practice into the 21st Century

Here's a quick post to share something that was a huge hit today with my kiddos. Building vocabulary is a large part of our reading instruction. We talk about the words, make sentences with them, have collaborative conversations about them them, write about them...you get the picture. We do a lot with our vocabulary, but today I wanted to shake things up a bit. Enter....FakeiPhoneText.com.

If you haven't used this awesome website, you have to go check it out. It is really easy. Just type in a conversation, hit create, and your text conversation opens in a new web window. You can save the picture using your right click or copy the web link to post onto Edmodo, email, or wherever.

We have a class set of Kindles, so my students used them to create their fake text conversation. The only stipulation was that it had to make sense and include at least three vocabulary words. Once finished, they copied the URL of the fake text and posted it to Edmodo. Success! This activity was just the change we needed right now, and it provided the practice they needed.

It also gave me some very good feedback as to who was using the words correctly and who was not. Here are a few of our creations:

I can think of so many uses for this website, but I really loved using it for vocabulary practice today. Maybe next week we'll incorporate it in some other subjects. 

CORE Academy

I'm very excited to be a part of JSU's CORE Academy for the next few days. I'll be presenting two sessions with my friend, Cara (Teaching...My Calling), over the next two days dealing with integrating technology and using social media.

Here's a sneak peak of our LiveBinder of resources we plan to share:

Hope to see you there!

Doing Word Walls and a Freebie

Many of us HAVE word walls in the classroom, but do we DO word walls? Are they just pretty decorations on the wall that the students ignore glance at ocassionally, or a real resource that students use on a daily basis? In this post, I'll show you how to take your word wall from static to fantastic, plus give you some super-cute word wall cards I made!

There's basically only two rules for making your word wall a living, breathing resource in the classroom:

Use the word wall in a whole-class activity every day. 

Hold students accountable for spelling word wall words correctly.

This is a daily reminder for the kiddos to use the word wall, and it sends the message "Here is an important resource for you." But you may be thinking, "What am I supposed to do with it? WHEN am I supposed to fit this in?!" This post is for you. Here are some things I've done that worked for me:

How Much? 10 minutes or less

When? I schedule my literacy block using the Four Blocks framework, so I have 20-30 minutes each day for word work. When I scheduled using the Daily 5 framework, the word wall activities were one of my mini-lessons.

Which? You may use frequently misspelled words (there, their, they're), vocabulary, or pre-made sets of words. I plan on using some of my choice, and some of the words from Month by Month Phonics because my school purchased them for each teacher.

What? Every Monday when you add new words (4-6), chant them. Show the word and discuss its meaning. Next spell it, then have students say it and spell it aloud and write the word down in their journals or personal word walls. I like to have them chant the spelling three or four times and here's where it can get really fun. There are literally TONS of ways they can do this. Here's a great list of word wall chants. Each day choose 3 or 4 words (or more if there's time) to discuss, chant, and/or write, then do a short activity with the words.

• Be a Mind Reader (my favorite activity): Choose one word that students guess through clues you give them. Each time you give a clue, they write down a word from the word wall (spelled correctly). The clues start out very general, then narrow down the choices. Here's an example for the word community:
• It's a word on the word wall. (Students write a guess on their papers).
• It is a singular, collective noun (Students rewrite their word, or revise and choose another word). 
• It has more than three syllables (Students write their word again, or revise their guess and write another word). 
• It has 9 letters (Students rewrite their word, or write a different word based on the clue). 
• The last letter is a y (By now most should have it)
• Be a Mind Reader v2: Similar to the activity above, but this time you choose five different words. Give one clue for each word. At the end, students who think they have the correct answers raise their hands and you check to see how got every word correct and spelled it correctly. I usually give them some little treat.
• Wordo: This is just like bingo, except with words! You can read more about it in this post. 

There are many, many more, but these three are a great place to start. Now, on to your freebies! I've made two sets of word wall labels to share with you:

Polka Dot Owl Word Wall Cards

Polka Dot and Chevron Owl Word Wall Cards

I'd love to hear from you! Do you do a word wall? If so, what are your favorite activities to do with it?

Integrating Technology into the Language Arts Classroom

I'm so excited to be presenting at AETC again this year with my good friend Cara (Teaching My Calling)! We're collaborators, colleagues, fellow 4th grade teachers, and we sometimes feel like we share a brain. (Maybe the rhyming names have something to do with it?)  We, like many of you, share a passion for using technology in meaningful ways to engage our students and make learning meaningful. If you're at AETC this year, hopefully we'll get to meet up during our session or some other time. If you're not there you can still check out our livebinder full of resources and examples we plan to share during our session:

Integrating Technology Into t

Headbands With a Twist

Here's another great vocabulary activity that your kiddos will LOVE! (Caution: This activity is not for QUIET classrooms). I do this in groups of about 6 students. Each group has a stack of cards with vocabulary words written on them. Each kiddo tapes a word card to their head. The other members of the group give clues to the student. I teach older kids so we have rules like:

• You can't give away any letters. 
• You can't give word parts. 
• No rhyming words. 
• No "Duh" clues.

The student guesses the vocabulary word. If guessed correctly, they take the card off their heads. The first group to guess every word is the winner! We usually play to find the 2nd place winner as well. Adding the group competition is a huge motivator for 4th graders. 

This is really great because each group collaborates in their own way: some decide to do one card/one child at a time, with every person giving clues to help. Some groups choose to sub-group themselves into pairs (because it is faster that way). The best part is that they are constructing their own ways to define the words! 

If you do this, be prepared to do it more than once. You can't stop after one round!

Wordo

Need a quick, fun way to review vocabulary? Wordo is basically Bingo using vocabulary. Today, as a spur of the moment activity, I had my kids draw a tic-tac-toe board (3x3), and write in their vocabulary words randomly. I called out clues and students drew an X on the words that answered the clues. Once students got three in a row they yelled "Wordo!" It was a super-fast, super-easy activity that the kids really enjoyed. It's always great when learning is fun!