For my activity, I used Google Vocabulary. My student read the book "Henry and Mudge take a Long Weekend" I did the picture activity and had him google them and find pictures to match the words. He loved doing this because he likes to do things on the computer. When he was done finding the picture to go with his word. I had him write his words on index cards and I mixed the index cards up and the pictures and we played concentration. When he found the picture that he thought went with the word, he had to tell me what the definition of the word was by looking at the picture and then tell me why he chose that picture. My assessment was an oral one. My student works better doing things orally. Overall it was a fun activity for both.

Tammy...what a great way to differentate your lesson. I think this activity would be engaging and work well as you assess students. Thank you for sharing...would you mind bringing an example of the picture/word to our SEEDS? I think it is so good for us when we can collaborate with our peers and share ideas. See you soon. ~lynda

Peggy...I wish I could see this activity in action. I am so impressed by the responses from your students. Have you tried using the same pictures but with different vocabulary words? I wonder how that would work with the kids? Thanks for posting and sharing your reflection...talk to you soon. ~lynda

I used an economy social studies booklet that came with our social studies materials. I chose five of the words that were listed as vocabulary words: economy, goods, services, consumers, and producers. I started with the word friendly definitions and then did a Power Point presentation where I used photos with the vocabulary word on each one of the slides. I made several slides for each vocabulary word. I had the students say the word as they looked at the photo. Then the students took turns explaining how the photo related to the vocabulary word that was on it. I also made a flip chart using the Promethean board where the students had to place the vocabulary words that related to the photo on the photo and explain why they chose that word. Other activities I used were: "Example/Non Example"; "Word Association","Generating Examples"; "Word Relationships", and "Writing". The students enjoyed the Power Point presentation, the group work, and the Promethean Board flip chart activities the most.

Tammy, I agree. I think anytime you use the computer with students they tend to stay focused and more willing to do the activity. I really like using photos and pictures to help teach vocabulary.

Greta, I really liked your idea of using the promethean board to do the picture/vocabulary activity. The kids loving using the board, technology is a great avenue for keeping kids exciting about learning.

I really enjoy teaching vocabulary now that we have learned so many fun and interesting ways to get kids involved with learning new words. With my 6th grade Title I group we did 3 activities: Have You Ever...?; Example/Nonexample; and Word Associations. I do pair-share to keep all them involved. Asking "Why?" lets me know their level of understanding and having them hear each other's explainations just deepens their understanding. For assessment we did the picture/vocabulary activity. Each student had word cards. I showed the picture and they chose the word/words to go with the picture and had to verbally tell why they chose those words. One student chose a word I hadn't thought about matching the picture, but he gave a plausible reason why. Perhaps next time I will make it written instead of oral.

The vocabulary activity I chose to share was the Example/Non-Example. I did this with my guided reading group, lower level. They were given these words last month as they were presented in thier reading book, so we completed student fiendly definitions and word maps over the 2-tier words and also did the picture word activity using google images, they loved that and were able to display these on tage board at our last P-T Conferences we had in February. They really liked that. They also exchanged thier words and photos with another reading group that did the same google pic activity, so all groups were involved and they had a great time figuring out what picture went with what word. Like I said, I did the example/non-example orally, it went well, but I would definitely like to try this as a written piece for an assessment.

Edited by author 02-26-2009 10:51 AM
Tammy, I am glad your activity went well, I also use the game concentration with alot of my vocab words all across the curriculum. It is a good way to keep kids' memories sharp!! Plus, it's a game, they love games!!

On the assessment piece, I did it orally because my student does better with being able to talk and explain. If he can explain it to me and give me the correct definition orally, I feel, with him, is a much better way to assess him than to give him a written test with choices. If he has choices, how do I know that he knows the word or if he is just a lucky guesser.

I really feel we were given several good activities to use in the teaching of vocabulary. So many of the activities can work into everyday learning situations. I know my students benefit from this approach to learning vocabulary. They really responded to the photos activities.

Greta,
I agree that the activities give us a wide range of ways to reinforce our vocabulary words. In using the sentence stem activity I found the students were able to generate a good number of examples by relating it to their own background knowledge. I also wrote an assessment piece that followed her examples and not making it so much matching as I had done in the past and the students responded well to that way of testing. Denise

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From: QuickTopic daily digest [1] Sent: Sun 3/1/2009 11:20 PM
To: Denise Jardon
Subject: Discuss 3-6 Reading



< replied-to message removed by QT >

Tammy,
I also did a different assessment with my students this time. I tried to use the examples that were given to us at our last SEEDS. Instead of matching the definitions I wrote some of the sentence stems and example ideas that were given. It all takes extra time to do but I like the results. Denise

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From: QuickTopic daily digest [1] Sent: Tue 2/24/2009 11:22 PM
To: Denise Jardon
Subject: Discuss 3-6 Reading



< replied-to message removed by QT >

An extensionof the picture activity that I have used this last month is to have my 5th/6th grade Title I students bring in a picture example of our "word of the week". It can be one they have found on the internet, drawn themselves, or found in a book and copied. It really helps to show that they understand the meaning of the word.

My favorite example was one brought in by a 5th grade boy for the word "ban". Shortly after Valentine's Day, he brought in a Jonas Brothers valentine with the "no" symbol (circle with a slash) around one of the singer's heads!

I really liked using the different vocab. activities. My favorite with my very "active" class was example/nonexample. If I gave them an example they would stand up and pose. If I gave them a nonexample they would remain seated. Great way to get the wiggles out after recess or PE.

My 3rd graders really liked matching the image with the vocab word from google images. I had a student while watching a Bill Nye DVD for science point out an image that was flashed on the screen and related it to a word (not a word we had been studying, but a new word to most).