Marlene, Great idea and how cool that your kids can tell what "hot seat" is. Would you mind bringing this and sharing this activity? Thanks and talk to you soon. ~lynda

I have been using a modified for Kdg version of "Hot Seat". The kids just love it and can't wait to have their turn. An older brother came in our room and heard a kindergartner mention the hot seat and was asked what it was. I had to smile as she explained: It's when you get a pink piece of paper with a word written in red and you have to tell about the word. I had used pink sticky notes and a read marker.

Linda, Thanks for posting and sharing your acivities you use with your voabulary instruction. Great ideas. It doesn't take long and it can be as simple as you just stated, but the results can be seen quickly and adjustments can be made from those observations....can't wait to visit on Wed. Thanks for sharing. Talk to you soon ~lynda

My Second graders are given quick assessments for word knowledge throughout the week. Here are a couple of examples. I put 2 or 3 words on the whiteboard and read a definition from the Cobuild dictionary. On their whiteboards they write the correct word, write the number of the word or simply say the word aloud to their partner. You can also reverse this by writing the definition and they have to identify the vocabulary word from their list. They also enjoy any variation of the Snowball activity we used last year in Math. It can easliy be adapted for use with vocabulary assessment.

Kris, Thank you for posting and sharing your activity. What a quick and easy way to get a handle on your students and vocabulary instruction....and they asked to do the activity again...yeah! I am glad it worked so well with you and your students. Talk to you soon. ~lynda

My students loved doing the "Making Choices?" activity. They really
enjoyed saying the word aloud when it matched the statement I said.
We used words like angry, excited, etc. This was a great quick
assesment to use. It was very easy to see if the students understood
or not. They asked me if we could do this activity again later in
the day! I will use this activity again soon.

Marge, Great idea. This would give your kids a stonger connection by the use of "real" objects. Thanks for posting and sharing your idea. I can see this working with all ages...can't you? Talk to you soon. ~lynda

I had my small group match our new vocabulary words with real objects and they loved it. Many of our new words began with blends--like twist and glob--and they learned them so easily. I used the words from Greg's Mask and they worked wonderfully for this activity.

Deb, Thanks for your response. It is nice to see we are on the right track when we find something that we are already doing in our classsroom. I know I always liked that "yeah, I must be on the right page if I'm doing the same thing" feeling. I am glad you are doing what you are doing...kids like the novelty, too. Talk to you soon ~lynda

There were some vocabulary activities in the menu of instructional activities that we had already been using. That surprised me.

We used some of the vocabulary activities in our spare time and the kids enjoyed doing something new.

Lynda,
Yes, the students really enjoyed the illustrating with vocabulary words. I have done this before focusing on one vocabulary word, but never focusing on four at a time. I will bring some to our next SEEDS to show you.

Dawnette...thanks for posting. I really liked your idea of having your students illustrate their vocabulary words. Did they enjoy this activity/assessment? It was a quick way to see if they did understand the meaning of the word. Would you mind bringing a couple with you to our next SEEDS? Thanks again for sharing, see you soon. ~lynda

One vocabulary activity I did was Applause, Applause. The students loved that activity and this is so versatile because you can use it with any age group. An assessment piece I did was to have the students illustrate vocabulary words. I gave them a piece of paper divided into 4 squares. After I had read a book and focused on 4 words, then I had them draw a picture for each of those words as I said it.

Here are the Quick Topic prompts for Day 3:

Think and Reflect:

1)What form of vocabulary assessment are you using with your students to demonstrate understanding?
2) Share what you are doing with the assessment piece of your vocabulary instruction.
3)Post at least 2 entries sharing your example and experience of using the assessment piece. What worked and what would you change.

I used the book Alexander and the Wind-Up Mouse. The boys and girls loved the book. I decided to use the lesson as printed for our first text talk experience. It went well, but for kindergarten I think I might condense it slightly. I also found my students were familiar with one of the tier two words - searched. So we spent some time on the word "pebble" which most did not seem familiar with. It was a good experience, one I would choose to do again.

Thank you very much!

My text topic was The Art Lesson. The kids liked it. Thanks to Peg Boeye for making it easy with the computer! >
 




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Sent via the Flubix Web Mail System at nishna-valley.k12.ia.us
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I did the lesson for "Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse" . The students really enjoyed the lesson and were able to relate the Tier 2 words to examples in their own lives. I was pleased with the attention level of the studies during this lesson. They were very attentive and interested in the activities.
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From: QuickTopic daily digest [1] Sent: Tue 1/6/2009 11:22 PM
To: Kris Martin
Subject: K-2 Reading



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I did the lesson The Polar Express with my students. The students absolutely loved this story. They were answering the questions with lots of enthusiasm and correctly! This lesson had chosen three tier two words to focus on and I thought the students did very well for Kindergarteners. They were able to provide some examples after I modeled for them.

I did A Bad Case of Stripes with my 4th graders. They loved the book and the pictures really had them interested. We even had a lesson of foods where they ate different vegetables including lima beans. They had a good experience!!! They enjoyed doing all the vocabulary exercises, and they know the words. They had to make up their own sentences and got extra credit if they discussed the words at home. I'm going to find another book. I enjoyed the class Linda and Sue did for us.

I read The Giant Jam Sandwich. The children enjoyed the story and they enjoyed giving examples of a nuisance. They also enjoyed giving me suggestions for all kinds of things. I read the story on a Monday and that worked well--I could bring up the vocabulary words all week long,

I did the lesson for "The Dog Who Cried Wolf" and I was very pleased by how my students responded to this story. Did anyone else use this story for their lesson?

This is your topic discussion for Quick Topic: After looking at the Utah site, what text-talk lesson did you implement? What activities did you do to extend the vocabulary instruction? Did your lesson go well...if not what went wrong or what would you have changed. Have fun...

Thanks for such a great day...you are a great bunch of teachers. Your students are so fortunate!!! And so are we! ~lynda

Lynda did a nice job also. I'm looking forward to the reading material for sped.

Dawnette, I feel my most successful vocab development activity comes from reading lots of books to the class.

How can I use these great vocabulary strategies without overwhelming my Title I students in my Title classes?

Tammy, We like to act out our vocabulary words.

I think Read Alouds would be an excellent way to broaden struggling reader's vocabularies. Choosing 3 words strategy would be a good way to do that.

I liked the read alouds and I will use the odd word out activity for vocab. I will change the read alouds by adding definitions of words I am focusing on.

Marlene,
I teach Kindergarten also and haven't found a great way to assess Vocabulary. I use mostly observations and some journaling activities. I've had the students act out vocabulary words. But no I haven't found the perfect assessment at the Kindergarten level. I'll let you know if I come up with something new.

Dawnette,I can see where building a word at a time would be great on your level. They come with quite different backgrounds and some vocabulary poor.

Dawnette,

I spend about 10 minutes a day on vocabulary.

Hi Bi! I use snowballing activities too. My kids love it.

Evelyn,

   I would like to try the Rivet activity with my First Graders.
I think it would be a fun way to teach vocabulary.

Which activities from last year do you still use in your classroom?

Does anyone have some good ideas on how to help someone who is in the 5th grade and reading at a 1st/2nd grade level?

Penny & Kris,
I plan on implementing vocabulary instruction with the read alouds and focusing on just the 3 words. I also like having a word of the day that we focus on the entire day. We haven't done that yet this year, but I may implement that in the coming weeks.

Dawntette,
I spend 10-15 minutes a day on Vocab development
Linda :)

Do you have a favorite, fun,and effective method of assessing vocabulary development on the kindergarten level?

Hi Peg! My favorite pat today was the Rivet Lesson. I love Wheel of Fortune.

Hi Dawnette,

    I like to spend about 10 to 15 minutes on Vocabulary each day.

I have done the RIVET activity and the students really enjoyed it. They could do a good job of predicting what the story will be about

I really enjoyed the "Reading Aloud". I think the students would enjoy doing this. It's more like an audio/visual lesson with participation instead of "at the desk with a worksheet".

Dear Peg,

I especially liked the rivet activity and think that I will use that in my classroom.

Deb

Mary Ann, see Peg Boeye about the snowballing activity. She uses this a lot in her phonics lessons.

What are some of your most favorite read alouds that you use for vocabulary development lessons?

Oou class was quite intersting today. Sue did a nice job informing us about our vocabulary lessons.

What is your favorite vocabulary activity?

To Dawnette -
I think on average we spend about 10 minutes a day on vocabulary in second grade.

I really liked the vocabulary instruction through the read alouds. I do this alot in the preschool but I can see how I could use this often and with success in the title classroom.

This is our first SEEDS class for this year and we are continuing to work on vocabulary strategies. I have a class of 27 this year with about half the class as readers and half as non-readers. If anyone has any helpful activities for one group to be doing while I am working with the other group, please let me know.

In the preschool classroom vocabulary is a main focus of my daily instruction and is ongoing throughout the day.

How closely do we monitor which teaching methods are research based?

Hi all,

What are your favorite new activities that were introduced today for teaching vocabulary?

Do you have any additional ideas about how to help struggling readers build their vocabulary knowledge?

What vocabulary ideas from Sept. SEEDS day are looking to implement?

Does anyone remember how the instructor used the snowballing activity to teach vocabulary?

How much time do you spend on vocabulary each day in your classroom?