Word Art

One of the areas we know we need to work on as a school is vocabulary. With a number of second language speakers, this becomes even more important, and with the increasing academic vocabulary as the students move up through the grade levels, knowing the meanings of words is critical.  While I love learning about words, this love isn’t always shared by my students, and I’ve given a lot of thought to ways to make learning new words more engaging, and not just a “drag out the dictionary and copy down the meaning” exercise.

One thing I tried this week was “Word Art”, another idea I got from the book Learning in the Fast Lane, by Suzy Pepper Rollins.  Kids take the word and use it to draw something that represents the meaning of the word but still incorporates the letters. I used the vocabulary words from our first social studies unit on First Americans, and gave the kids a choice about which word to illustrate. Many chose “migration”, and used the letters to show the word “moving” across the paper. One student illustrated “nomad” by having all the letters walking with feet. One of my Muslim students chose “stereotype” and included a picture of a woman in a headscarf using the letter “o”. I think this would be a fun activity to use in any subject area, and I plan to have it as an independent activity during guided reading and intervention times. I posted them on the wall so students will have a chance to see how others illustrated each word, and also so the current unit’s vocabulary is on display while we are in that unit. My colleague found a bunch of adding machine tape and we cut up long strips for the kids to use, which they also enjoyed. I’d recommend this if you’re looking for something a little different to do with vocabulary!