Archive for July, 2013

July 30th, 2013

Vocabulary Building-Summer Theme

Summer means different things to different people. If you ask, “What words come to mind when you think of summer?” , you’ll get different answers.  Brainstorming is a great activity to get students to think more broadly. Try printing and saying a word associated with summer.  Talk about words that are the same or similar, words that are opposite and words that go with it.  Here’s some examples:

Word                  Same/Similar                             Goes with

vacation                holiday                                              travel

ocean                      sea                                                   beach

playground            park                                                   bench

Activity: Brainstorming.

1. Ask ” How many words that go with summer can you think of?”  The words could  be things (nouns) like; river, cabin, towel etc. They might be actions (verbs) like; fishing, reading, boating. They could also be describing words (adjectives) like; hot, breezy, humid, itchy.

2. Once you have a word, think of all the other words that go with it. Here’s an example:

Mosquito-buzz, annoying, itchy, repellant, slap, wings, bite, bug, fly

You get the picture.  Have fun with it-no answer is wrong when you’re brainstorming.