Vocabulary Study Update

Well, my first full week of instruction was this past week. OH.MY!!

I have a lot of things that need adjusting... like the amount of work I have planned. My classes are about an hour shorter this year, so I found myself having way too much to do and not enough time to do it. Needless to say...  I was a little stressed!

I did manage to get my first week of vocabulary complete! It took a little longer than expected, but I'm hoping the time will shorten once we get the hang of it. If you follow me on Instagram, then you probably saw this picture!

Many were asking about my vocabulary planning sheet and how I use Chromebooks to help my students with vocabulary. To be honest, it was one of those times when you have an idea at the last moment. I really didn't want my students to search through dictionaries to find the definition, synonyms, antonyms, and other ways to use the words. I grabbed my Chromebooks, paired my students together, and sent them to www.merriam-webster.com. I tried to look for other sites, but this one was simple enough for my 5th graders and had everything they needed.

Here are some other pictures of them working.

 They absolutely loved this lesson! Here's what we did each day! It only took us 3 days to complete the work, but I'm hoping to get it down to 2!
Monday- we read the sentences and decided which words went where (close style). We then determined the meaning of the words by using context clues.
Tuesday- the students worked on chrome books and found antonyms and synonyms for each word.
Wednesday- the students used the kid-friendly definition we came up with together, the sentence on the chart, and synonyms/antonyms to create their own sentence.

Before I gave the vocabulary planner to my students, I wrote out kid-friendly definition for each word OR you could have them write it.

Here's what our chart looked like after our vocabulary work days!

 I have decided that I really need 2 black pocket charts since I am teaching two different books. Right now I am switching them out with each class (I teach 4 classes and we are doing 2 different books) and it is a pain! I think I'm going to take down the orange charts and replace them with a full-size. I'm planning on putting the orange charts near so I can place our words in as we finish each cycle.

 Are you interested in my Vocabulary Planner? Grab it in my store for free! It is adapted from Word Nerds. You can click on the image below to go directly to the page.