One area of Daily 5 that I really wanted to improve
on was "Expand Vocabulary". I started by doing a Vocabulary Word of the Day. I use my ipad2 (another love) for one of my mini-lessons to introduce a new word each day. I use Vocabulary Builder, Grade 1 and Grade 2. It's an awesome app.
After I show the kids the word and explain it's definition they share sample sentences or meanings at the carpet. Then I have them go to their seats and write the word in the Wonderful Words Book (more on that later). They can also draw a picture next to the word.
I needed somewhere to display the word of the day so that the kids could see it and hopefully use it. As wall space is short I decided to make a word of the day display on the cabinets above my sink. I really like how it turned out.
The kids have a lot of fun with the word of the day. I find them using it often during the day and week and also finding it in their reading!
One of the most fun things we do with our word of the day is post in on twitter. The leader of the day gets to come up with a sentence that uses the word of the day which I then publish on twitter, along with the meaning of the word. I have encouraged the parents that follow us on twitter to reply to the word of the day tweet and use the word in their own sentence. The kids love seeing what their parents say! A recent example for "hustle" was "Second graders often do not like to hustle when they get up in the morning."
So far I'm loving the word of the day. It's helping my students tune into those interesting words as they become better writers and readers!
How do you help your students tune into interesting words and expand their vocabulary?