Word of the Day

Lets chat about vocabulary. How do you teach your students about new words?

This year I'll be having a:

Why have a Word of the Day?

I really want to encourage my students to be interested in words. Just as I want them to develop into life long readers I also want them to be readers who find words fascinating. Plus it's an easy way to teach vocabulary that is fun and flexible. 

Where am I going to get these words from?
I have a starter list to pull from if I ever feel uninspired (this is for 2nd grade but could be used in other grades):

Then as the year progresses I might use

• vocabulary words from other subject areas (science terms maybe?)
• words we discover from a read aloud
• words students discover and find interesting that they nominate for the Word of the Day 

How will it look in my classroom?

The word will be introduced at the end of our morning meeting. We will define the word, use it in sentences, possibly act it out, and student's will be encouraged to use this word as well in writing and conversation.

After the word is introduced it will be the word we use to transition with all day long.

Yes, transition. In my class when I say "It is transition time" (original I know) my students call out "FREEZE" and proceed to look at me and freeze like statues.

I then give them the transition directions, "Please turn in your work to the red tub, and meet me on the carpet."

When I'm finished giving the directions I say the Word of the Day like: "Splendid". That signals for the students that they can begin the transition. Sometimes I'll use the word in a sentence so they hear it in context too.

I love how this way of transitioning forces the students to STOP and listen. I hate talking and not being listened to.. I'm sure you do too. If students decide to not freeze then we will practice and practice until they are perfect. They don't particularly like this but it gets the message across without any voices raised. 

I also count down from 10 to 0 and when I get to 0 students should be be finished with the transition and ready for the next lesson or activity. Saves a lot of class time!

At the end of the day if my class and I really liked our word of the day then it will go on our 'Words to Remember' board (Can't wait to show you pictures in August!). This is going to look just like a word wall but rather than putting up our sight words, it is going to be interesting words we come across.

Students will also have a 'Word to Remember' page in their reading binder (will post about those another time) where they will record interesting words they come across in their reading and want to save.

With the combination of Word of the Day and Words to Remember I'm really excited about enlarging my students vocabularies! 

Want to download your own for free?

You can download that stinkin cute 'Word of the Day' sign to hang up on your white board and write the word of the day under it plus my starter list on Teachers Pay Teachers here or Teachers Notebook here!

How do you facilitate a love of words in your students or increase student's vocabulary?