Vocabulary Instruction

Vocabulary instruction is key to comprehension in the content areas, such as history, social studies, and science. Well, I guess it’s key to understanding anything that you are trying to teach. 

I’m teaching summer school to a group of rising first graders in an area with a high percentage of Spanish speaking families. Some of these kiddos don't have any English spoken in their home, which makes it real tough for them to know what’s going on in the classroom. We were singing a silly camp song about ravioli, and one girl was just looking around the room with a completely confused look on her face. She had no idea what this ravioli was about! After taking time to explain the words in the song, she understood a little better. 

How many times does this happen in the classroom? Many students (not just your ESL/ELL learners) struggle with vocabulary. They can be just as confused in class as this sweet girl was about ravioli! So what do we do? 

I think that our biggest obstacle is time. We’d love to spend a day or two really working on the vocabulary. But we must keep moving and plowing through to make sure we finish. Or, we give up time so we can focus on those subjects that are tested. Because we all know those are more important. Or at least that’s what we’re forced into thinking. (Can you tell I despise what we are doing to our children with these government issued mandates that don’t allow us to teach?) 

I digress… 

Since we cannot do anything about the time constraints that we have in our classroom, we must find ways to infuse vocabulary instruction into what we do. 

“Learners move from not knowing a word, to being somewhat acquainted with it, to attaining a deeper, richer knowledge that allows them to use new words in many modalities of expression.” -Camille Blackowicz and Peter Fisher, 2012 

Our students fall into one of these three categories: 
1. Not knowing the words they encounter in their instruction, 
2. Having a loose familiarity with the words, or 
3. Knowing the words well enough to use them in their own expressions of their learning. 

I think we all want our students to be at the third category, but too often, we don’t give them enough time with the words to master them. 

Check out the list below for some different activities that can help you move your students from vocabulary confusion to mastery. 

1. Reading immersion! When students encounter new words in texts that they are invested     in, the words stay with them. 
2. Understanding Context Clues Strategies 
3. Learn Synonyms and Antonyms 
4. Importance of learning word stems and origins 
5. Vocabu-ladders! 
6. Vocabulary Games 

I will write more blog posts on each of these topics soon to give you a plethora of ideas to help you as you plan for teaching vocabulary to your students. What’s one way that you include vocabulary instruction in your classroom? I’d love to have a list of strategies here that we can share with each other!

  Martha

It's 2017... already? Ringing in the New Year with a Healthy Living Fitness Challenge in your classroom

The beginning of a new year can be the best time to motivate your students to try something new or kick a bad habit to the curb.  It's a time of reflection on what went well last year and what changes might need to be made for the new year.  Every year, I try to come up with a inspirational idea to motivate my students to be better and to do better, but I'm not sure how effective I've been at it. Sometimes my cute New Year mobiles don't look that hot.  Other times, students don't finish filling out their goals sheets. And then there are times when students just don't want to.

I actually was thinking about NOT doing New Years goals this year.  I know that I've failed in many of my own, and I just didn't want to be disappointed with the lack of enthusiasm from my students. But, as I was planning my next science unit (which is actually a chapter in our health books), I thought of a different idea.  Why not focus on healthy living for our goals?  I KNOW my students need guidance in this directions.  Just look at what they eat on any given day for lunch.  

Our health chapter is all about eating right and exercising.  We're going to be reading about kinds of food that we should be eating, vitamins and minerals, exercise and heart rate.  I put together this fun "Healthy Habits Fitness Tracker" for students to keep track of what they eat and do. 

I teach 2 different science classes, and students in both classes were so excited about this challenge. Classes are going to be competing against each other.  We're going to track 8 different healthy habits: how many vegetables we eat, how many fruits, sugary drinks consumed, how much water we drink, amount of time watching TV/playing video games. how much physical activity we get, if we eat breakfast and how much sleep we get each night.  

Students had so many questions - what's a serving of veggies, how do I know how much water I drink if I just put my mouth under the kitchen faucet (yep, that was a real question), does my gymnastics class count for physical activity, what if I watch a movie with my family - movies are over 60 minutes... So many opportunities to teach real life skills that will hopefully turn into amazing healthy habits!

We're going to keep up the challenge for 4 weeks.  I'm currently looking into getting donations for prizes for my students for completing their weekly trackers and then for the winning class.  But I think another amazing benefit is that I have instant accountability partners for my own healthy living goals.  I need to track these things just as much as my students need to!  And my homeroom is definitely going to be watching what I'm doing to make sure I don't bring them down in our contest.

You can get your own free copy of my Fitness Tracker here in my TpT store, The Owl Spot.  I'd love to hear how you use this in your class, or just for yourself!  

Here's to a happy new year and a healthier you!

Martha from "The Owl Spot"

Bullet Journals for Busy Teachers

I Love Bullet Journaling!

I have discovered the amazing world of BULLET JOURNALING!  After many years of trying to juggle home, teaching, and church schedules (and failing miserably), I was about to give up.  I’ve tried different kinds of planners, but they never seemed to be flexible enough.  I think at one time I had a planner for schedules, a notebook for to-do lists, and random loose notes everywhere for things to remember to put in one of these places.  Needless to say, my life was pretty much in complete disarray! 

Then I found bullet journaling.  I was looking through Pinterest and saw a pin about it.  I read through the blog and was almost convinced that it might work. Bullet journaling has the flexibility to include all of the parts of my complicated life in one place, and to make changes as needed.  And I loved that I could doodle and keep it looking “cute.” 

So, I bought a journal, some fun Flair pens (my favorite!) and got right to it.  I didn’t want to invest in an expensive journal, so I settled with a thick spiral notebook with a sturdy cover.  I knew it would be thrown into my school bag and needed to be quit durable. 

After reading many different blogs about how to bullet journal, I decided that, since it’s supposed to be tailored to my own needs and style, I would adopt the things I liked and change those I didn’t.  Here’s what I include in my journal:

1.      Monthly Calendar – I keep this because I need to see what’s going on at a month’s glance. I use color coding to know if it’s for school, family, church, or TpT. Under each calendar, I list the days of the month so I can record important things going on for each day.

Monthly Tracker and Tasks – I want to track things each month, such as how much water I drink, exercise, hours I work with teaching, hours I put into my TpT store, piano practice, etc.  Placing a tracker chart with in my bullet journal just made sense!  I also keep a task list for the month near my tracker so I can track things and be reminded of things that need done.

Daily To-Do list – After the monthly calendar, I keep a section for each day, keeping an “on-going” list of what I plan to accomplish for the day.  I’ve found that others use a coding system that was a bit too complicated for me.  So, I modified.  Check mark for those tasks that are finished, exclamation point for those that are of immediate importance, a diagonal slash for those things that are partially completed, and an arrow for things that were not finished.  Those things just simply get moved to the next day. 

Other sections I include in my journal are a business goals page, books I want to read page, piano lesson notes, church notes, and recipes I want to try. As the summer ends, I’m adding sections showing shopping lists and sketches for how I want to set things up in my classroom.  I’m sure there will be more parts added later.  That’s what I love about this; I can modify and adjust for my own needs. 

Finally, I feel like I have a little bit more control over my life.  Too bad the journal can’t help me eliminate  the busyness of life… but that’s for another blog entry! 

Here's a few other helpful blogs about beginning your own bullet journals:

The Art of Simple

The Brunette with a Blog

Creative Pink Butterfly

Boho Berry