At Classroom in the Middle blog, vocabulary posts fall into several categories – story vocabulary to go along with novel studies, language arts content vocabulary, vocabulary skills such as using context clues and recognizing word connotations, word parts, and parts of speech. And word lists for special occasions! Here are several that you might like to browse through.
Organizing Vocabulary Instruction
Organizing Vocabulary Instruction for the Year is about what I was just talking about in the previous paragraph – the many topics that vocabulary instruction encompasses, and about ways to organize it all for the school year.
Story Vocabulary
Mostly, you’ll find story vocabulary mixed in with posts about individual novels – in activities, word lists, and context clues questions. Here is one post that is all about story vocabulary – Working with Story Vocabulary from the novel Journey. This post also includes a link to my Journey freebie – an activity based on the idea, from the story, of family photo albums.
Expanding Vocabulary Instruction
Expanding Vocabulary Instruction is about some of those skills that go beyond just defining words. Skills like differentiating between connotations and denotations can be fun to teach and fun for kids to learn since they really get the kids thinking. Here are a few more fun and engaging vocabulary topics: solving analogies, using figurative language and imagery, and working with multiple-meaning words. Each one is addressed in one or more posts of its own as well as in this post.
Holiday Word Lists
At Classroom in the Middle’s website, there are posts for various holidays that include handy vocabulary lists of words with the holiday theme. Here you can see one for Earth Day. It includes a downloadable list plus suggestions for activities. At the website, you can find lists for other holidays including two lists for Christmas, one a general Christmas list and one about characters in Christmas stories.
Parts of Speech
The “For Big Kids” series of posts is about teaching parts of speech to kids in upper elementary and middle school. The posts go along with resources, available at TPT, for each part of speech, including slide presentations and task cards. So far, the topics include pronouns, subject-verb agreement, verb tenses, adjectives, and adverbs. Here is Adverbs for Big Kids.
Free Task Cards
And finally, here is your free Vocabulary Task Card Sampler. It includes eight cards on a mix of vocabulary topics including connotations, analogies, multiple meaning words, prefixes, and others. Along with the printable version, there is also a digital version included, in your choice of either TPT’s Easel format or Google slides. You can download either one for free now!
Hope you will find some of these ideas and freebies useful as you think ahead to next year. And if you are interested in more about vocabulary instruction, keep an eye out for the next summer round-up post. This next one will be about roots and affixes!
