Dictionary Races

You can encourage students to participate in Dictionary Races.

Give each student a series of words to look up in the dictionary and a copy of a
dictionary.
Have the students look up the words and write down the definitions.
The first student to find and write down all of the definitions wins.

Students can then be encouraged to come up with creative sentences for the words they
looked up in the dictionary races. You can:

Ask each student to select a word and write a sentence on the board with that word.
Give the students a series of related words, and have these sentences tie together as a
story. Ask one student to begin the story using the first sentence containing a
vocabulary word, and go around the room, having each student build upon the story
using the next word on the list.

These activities will help students learn to use the dictionary, and will provide two exposures
to the words within a brief context of time. You can then:

Ask the students to identify prefixes, suffixes or roots contained in the words they
looked up. Of course, before doing this part of the game, you will need to ensure that
each student knows exactly what a prefix, suffix or root is.
Turn this into a contest as well, awarding a prize to the student who can identify the
most prefixes or suffixes from your word list within a given period of time.

Play this series of games repeatedly with different word lists, mixing in some of the old words
each time with some of the new words. With repeated exposure to the existing words and a
fun and engaging atmosphere in which to learn new words, students will be able to commit
the words to memory more quickly and will have fun in the process.

Students can keep these lists of words, sentences and prefixes/suffixes in a special vocabulary
notebook which they review periodically. This will allow them to build upon their knowledge
of vocabulary and to slowly learn new words throughout the course of the year.

By referring back to existing word lists and definitions in addition to looking up new words,
students will experience repeated exposure to the words that they have looked up, ensuring
that they commit those words to memory.

Read more at http://education.yourdictionary.com/for-teachers/activities-for-teaching-

vocabulary.html#yHjQSPVpivguFf1U.99

Describe the Silly Hat

One adjective game that is very popular in elementary school classrooms is the game of
describing silly objects.
 Try wearing different colorful and silly hat into the classroom each week.
Ask your students to describe the hat. For example, wear a sombrero with many colorful
tassels, a winter hat with bright patterns and pompoms, or a tall chefs hat decorated with
buttons.

Discourage your students from using the same words each day to describe the hat: if they are
stuck, teach them synonyms for their usual words.

Describe your Drawing

When your students return to their desks from art class or from a craft activity, ask them to
put their drawings on their desk.

Provide them with pencils and a special notebook that is used each time you play this activity
in class.

Ask them to bring out their notebook, and describe their art with as many adjectives as
possible. If they are stumped, ask them targeted questions:

What color is your painting?

What is the size of the drawing?
How does the man in your painting look?

Over time, the students will become used to explaining their art using creative adjectives.

Hide-and-Seek with Adjectives

Pair your students for the adjective hide and seek game.

Instruct one member of the pair to write a sentence using as many adjectives as possible.
Instruct the other member to use a highlighter to mark all of the adjectives in the sentence.
Then as a whole class, tell the second member of each pair to share the adjectives they
found, and correct them if they have identified any words that are not adjectives.

Students will learn adjectives from each other while also learning to use them properly in their
writing.

Adjective of the Day

Each day, write one new adjective on the blackboard, or post the adjective on a bulletin board
visible to all of your students.

Encourage your students to use this adjective in various ways throughout the day. If the
adjective of the day is calm, for example, have your students use the word in several
classroom activities.

Go around the room and have each student use the word calm in a spoken sentence.
At their desks, have students draw a picture of something that is calm.
Sing a song together that could be described as calm or that uses the word calm in the
lyrics.
By using their new vocabulary in a variety of ways in the classroom, students will train their
brains to use the adjectives in many ways in their everyday life.

Appetizing Adjectives: One of the Tastiest Adjective Activities

Have your students put together a menu that features lots of well-described food items.
Instead of writing spaghetti and meatballs, encourage your students to use lots of
delicious adjectives to make them sound like very appetizing.

Challenge your students to make the best descriptions possible, and then have the students
vote on which option sounds most delicious.
Treat your class after the game to a snack that features the menu item that was described
with the most adjectives!

Read more at http://education.yourdictionary.com/for-teachers/adjective-

activities.html#pPUUqPJvg7fvTCRV.99

Lesson 1: Gather a variety of pictures and assign either a noun or verb to them depending on
what the picture depicts. Clearly a picture of a car would be labeled car. However, the
picture of a woman sitting behind the wheel of a car could be labeled driving.

Next, break students up into groups to challenge each other. The purpose of the challenge is
describe the noun pictures using adjectives and the verb pictures using adverbs. The opposing
teams have to figure out what is in the picture given these clues.

Using the picture of the car, students might describe it as red, shiny, metallic, small,
and economical.
For the picture of the person driving, students might describe it as happily, speedily,
joyfully, or energetically.

The team that figures out the most pictures would win.

Lesson 2: On the classroom walls, provide students with sentences that have blank spaces
where an adjective or adverb should be. Make them large enough that students can be part of
the sentence.

Give each student a few large pieces of paper in which to write down a word to fit into the
space. Then have students become part of the sentence by standing in front of the correct
space with their adjective or adverb.

Lesson 3: On large note cards or pieces of paper, have students write down individual nouns,
verbs, adjectives and adverbs. Then, have students walk around class trying to find two to
three other students with whom they can make a sentence. The students that create the longest
complete sentence (that makes sense) wins.

Lesson 4: Adverb charades - choose a variety of different adverbs to put on one set of note
cards and put a variety of different verbs on another set.
Have students draw from both piles of cards.

Once they have their adverbs and verbs, they can then act out the words and hope that the
students can guess the two word phrase.

Lesson 5: Adjective/Adverb scavenger hunt. Using a recently read class novel, or a selection
of several short stories, assign a group of students to either a chapter or a story. Groups can
double up on chapters in order to check each others work.

Have the students read through the story and pick out all adjectives and adverbs. They can
then try reading the stories without these words in them to see the impact that properly placed
adjectives and adverbs add to a story.

Lesson 6: Using old magazines, have students look through all of the advertisements to find
the adjectives and adverbs used. Discuss with them the purpose of these words on the printed
page. Another version of this is to use the advertisements and have students choose adjectives
and adverbs to describe the pictures without using any of the words on the page itself.

Worksheets may be good practice or busy work, but not great as the sole learning aid for
students. The more students can interact with authentic writing to see how parts of speech,
grammar, punctuation and other aspects important to writing, affect what we see and read, the
more they will understand how to use these in their own writing.

Students can use adverb flashcards to enhance their vocabulary and learn more adverb
examples.

Link/Cite

Read more at http://education.yourdictionary.com/for-teachers/lessons-about-adjectives-vs-

adverbs.html#R4Csf9jdCYqTWtED.99

Explaining Haiku

Haiku is a form of poetry that began in Japan. Haiku uses the senses to describe scenes from
nature, and often involves vivid images of trees, plants, seasons, and other elements of the
natural world.

A haiku is comprised of three lines, and a total of 17 syllables, broken up into a five-seven-
five rule:

five syllables on the first line

seven syllables on the second line

five syllables on the third line

Because haiku by design is a simple form of poetry, it is an excellent place for young writers
to begin and hone their skills as budding poets. Educators can teach kids how to write haiku
by following a few simple steps:

Explain what haiku is and how it is a brilliant way to express the beauty that is in nature.
Point out the five-seven-five rule regarding the syllable construction of haiku. Make sure that
your students understand how to determine syllables in words, and review with them how to
use a dictionary to find syllables when necessary.
To help students with syllables, have them clap the words of each line of a haiku, and count
with each clap.
Have students write down potential subjects for their haiku. Because haiku describes the
natural world, have them write a list of subjects, which can include animals, seasons, physical
scenes, and more.
Once your students have determined the subject and title for their haiku, have them begin
writing lists of words that describe their subject. Of course not all of these terms will be
utilized in their final poem, but a robust and descriptive list will give them a lot of words to
choose from when drafting their haiku.
Have them begin with their first line of five syllables. Teach your kids to describe ideas, be as
vivid as possible, rather than trying to construct sentences or complete thoughts.
As they proceed to their second, and longer line of seven syllables, your students will want to
further the idea captured by the haiku. Remember to use ample praise and to guide them
when they are stuck, offering suggestions for word usage.
When the finish their haiku with the third line of five syllables, remind them that this line can
be one or two words, and again, that they should aim for simplicity.

Example of a Haiku

To have your students understand and appreciate haiku, you should share with them several
examples of this form of poetry. Here is a sample haiku by acclaimed Japanese poet Basho:

An old silent pond...

A frog jumps into the pond, splash!

Silence again.

You can also share with your class haiku that you or previous students have written, and
remind them of the simplicity and beauty of all haiku, regardless of its authoring.

Capture Imagination

To teach kids how to write haiku, try to use encouragement, rewards, and to capture their
imagination throughout the process. You can do this by beautifully publishing their haiku, and
having the student decorate the poem with scenes appropriate to their subject matter.

Here are a few ways that you can publish your students decorated haiku poetry:

Have haiku mounted on construction paper and other decorative paper, and post it on a
bulletin board in your school or classroom.
 Create a booklet with all of your students haiku and distribute it to your class for them to
share with their parents and others.
Use haiku in cards or invitations for family members and others.

Teachers should be enthusiastic about haikus beauty, and help students fall in love with this
form of poetry.

Read more at http://education.yourdictionary.com/for-teachers/teach-kids-how-to-write-

haiku.html#yvwT7myKXV4FDVFH.99

Context Clues Lesson Plan

Materials

"Mad Libs" game handout (1 per student)

Paragraph with missing words (1 per student)
Paragraph without the missing words (1 per student)

Objectives

1. Students will create a nonsensical paragraph writing assignment through Mad Libs.
2. Students will fill in the blanks for a paragraph, based on the words surrounding the blank.
3. Students will offer their own definitions of context clues.

Steps

1. The teacher will hand out the Mad Libs assignment to the class. The students will be given
approximately five to seven minutes to complete the Mad Libs, and they will be instructed to
follow the directions exactly, so that they do not see the words surrounding the blanks.

2. Students will be broken up into groups and asked to share their Mad Libs assignments with
one another.

3. A discussion will ensue in which the following questions are asked:

How many of your stories made sense?

Why do the stories not make sense?
What are some ways this story could make sense?

4. The teacher will distribute the paragraphs with blanks to the class. However, this time, the
students will be instructed to guess the missing word based upon the words around it.
Students will have approximately seven to ten minutes to complete this portion of the lesson.

5. Once all of the students have completed the assignment, distribute the paragraph as it was
written without the missing words. Ask students to compare the words that they used with the
words that were actually used.

6. A discussion ensues in which the following questions are asked:

 What is the difference in how you handled these two stories?
How does having the words around the blank help?
Were the words that you selected fairly accurate?
Do you know what we call this method?
Can you offer a definition of context clues?

7. A brief lecture ensues in which the teacher describes how students can use this method
with words that they do not know. Even though there was no word, the students could figure
out what should be there based on the clues around the space. Therefore, if students do not
know a vocabulary word, they can use the words around it to decipher it.

8. Homework: Ask students to create their own paragraphs with missing words. They should
have a copy with the correct words too. The next day, students will have other students fill in
the blanks.

Suggestions and Tips

You may shorten or lengthen time limits for each of the tasks, depending upon the level of
the class.
Instead of handing out the paragraph with the correct words to the students, ask them to
guess what the correct word was in a large group discussion, if you have the time to do so.
For older or more advanced students, allow them to have discussions within their small
groups.
If there is time in the classroom, allow them to start the homework there so that you can
assist the students with any difficulty or troubles. Furthermore, doing so will allow for a
"writing workshop" type of atmosphere in the classroom.

Like many lesson plans, this one can be tweaked in order to fit your individual needs.
However, this model is a framework for you to use in its entirety or to take bits and pieces of
to create a lesson plan on context clues that is appropriate for the students in your class.

Read more at http://education.yourdictionary.com/for-teachers/what-is-vocabulary-context-clues-

lesson-plan.html#Qz63DZd1Cq670R9m.99