Readers of Man's Search for Meaning use context clues, create stories using words from the text, and retype these stories as part of their vocabulary study of Viktor Frankl's book.

Blundering, audacious, obscurest. Class members develop strategies for teaching each other vocabulary words drawn from The Hobbit.

Third graders practice dictionary skills. They use a digital camera and insert pictures from a floppy disk into a document. They play a game in which they are handed an anonymous definition of each other and must find each other in class.

Like Oskar, the curious boy in Jonathan Safran Foer’s story, class members journey through other “stories that the mouth can’t tell” to find another sentence that uses a word found in novel. Individuals create their own vocabulary list,...

What fun! As part of a vocabulary exercise designed for Victor Martinez's Parrot in the Oven: Mi Vida readers create word trees with the trunk representing the root word and the branches representing prefixes that can be added to the...

Endeavor. Qualm. Stolid. Fortitude. Filial. Bingo! As part of their study of Pearl Buck's The Good Earth, class members engage in a vocabulary bingo game.

Help your pupils discover the power of context clues by teaching the this vocabulary strategy. Designed to go with words from Willa Cather's My Antonia, this exercise focuses on having individuals use their own words to define new...

Want your class to use critical thinking when discussing vocabulary? Go beyond the dictionary with a vocabulary activity based on Gary Paulsen's Hatchet. Kids write the word in the center of a graphic organizer that also provides...

Here is a strategy for groups to contribute to whole class vocabulary development. Teams (based on seating rows) work together to look up dictionary definitions of words from upcoming sections of the book (though previous sections seem...

When do we use dictionaries? Provide this dictionary scavenger hunt for your youngsters. Third and fourth graders search for words, recording the number of syllables or definition for a variety of words. Get your class using dictionaries...

Fourth graders explore reading strategies through roleplaying. In this reading instructional activity, 4th graders read Wings, Stings, and Wiggly Things by Martin Jenkins. Student groups pretend to be a law firm and identify words as...

Elementary schoolers discover that the world is at their fingertips as they acquire new vocabulary. Several suggested activities and strategies are provided here, building new reading and oral vocabulary. 

Students identify and portray specific character attributes through uprigth movement, creating a portrayal of an animal. They use vibrant, upright movement to convey the characteristics and temperament of specific animals. Finally,...

Explore the power of words with your class by analyzing the connotations of fictitious sports team names. Learners discuss team names and the mental images they convey. They create logos to illustrate the meanings and...

Dedicate one or two class periods to creating a class glossary of geometry terms. Many geometry terms also appear in our every day vocabulary, but they have very different meanings. For example, the word gross in geometry is very...

Scholars demonstrate their knowledge of root words aqua and aud, and develop vocabulary skills by completing of a chart, handout, and worksheet using creative thinking skills, a dictionary, and a thesaurus.   

Learners find out the meaning for prefixes used in math vocabulary. By dissecting words used in everyday math, they figure out what the prefix indicates and what the word means. A variety of well-organized worksheets and activities...

Students write and contribute one page for a class picture dictionary. They discuss how to alphabetize words, and examine both regular and picture dictionaries and how they are organized. Next they create a page for the class dictionary...

"Bullying and Prejudice" and "Do You Cyber Bully," two lessons from a complete Bully Free program, serve as samples of the approach used in a unit designed to bring awareness to and to combat bullying. Each lesson asks class...

It takes courage to stand up to bullies. Two sample lessons from a complete Bully Free curriculum, "Courageous and Brave Bystanders" and "Assertiveness Skills for Bullied Students and Empowered Bystanders" provide participants with...

Investigate vocabulary terms related to communities. First your class generates a list of vocabulary terms related to the study of communities. Working in small groups, they compete in a dictionary drill to discover the meaning of the...

Improve word choice! Writers use dictionaries and thesauruses to aid them in choosing exciting words to incorporate in their writing. They rewrite sentences and practice identifying words that can be replaced using a better word....

Immaculate, accumulation, dissipation. Vocabulary drawn from chapter 16 of James McBride's memoir, The Color of Water, can prove to be challenge for readers. To help kids understand the meaning of these words and what they add to the...

Demonstrate strategies for tackling unfamiliar vocabulary words in preparation for the SAT. Using Visual Thesaurus computer software, middle and high schoolers interpret contextual clues, solve sample sentence completion questions, and...