Vocabulary Maps

Ms. Leom has been developing our vocabulary language with students. We are using Vocabulary Word Maps to help students expand their words.

We do not just hand students a piece of paper and say, "complete". We model together, showing the steps and thinking to be successful, often more than once. These were two of the examples Ms. Leom used in class this week. Please forgive her drawing and writing, she was using a mouse.

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 Vocabulary Word Maps are worth nine points for each side. As students become more fluent in using a dictionary (or the dictionary app on their iPad), we will expect two words (front and back).

The points:
- correctly spelling the vocabulary word
- identifying the part of speech
- yes/no I've heard this word before
- writing a definition (without using any form of the word in it)
- using the word IN a sentence with a capital letter, punctuation mark, correct spelling, and it makes sense
- drawing a picture (beyond a "stick figure") with color, adding a caption if needed
- writing two synonyms (note: not other forms of the same word); sometimes there may not be synonyms of the word (Ms. Leom will look these up to double check)
- finally rating yourself on your learning.

We can use words from reading we are doing in class, from books we are reading independently, or our weekly spelling lists.