Lesson Plan #:AELP-VOC000
Author: Liz Cannon
School or Affiliation: McGill Elem., NV
Endorsed by: These lesson plans are the result of the work of the teachers who have attended the Columbia Education Center’s Summer Workshop. CEC is a consortium of teacher from 14 western states dedicated to improving the quality of education in the rural, western, United States, and particularly the quality of math and science Education. CEC uses Big Sky Telegraph as the hub of their telecommunications network that allows the participating teachers to stay in contact with their trainers and peers that they have met at the Workshops. Date: May 1994

Grade Level(s): 6

Subject(s):

• Language Arts/Vocabulary

Overview: I started this activity to get my students more excited about vocabulary.

Purpose: This is an ongoing lesson to get students to learn the vocabulary that corresponds with core curriculum.

Objectives: Students will learn vocabulary lists from science and social studies lessons.

Resources/Materials:

• vocabulary lists from texts

Activities and Procedures: Each morning when the students first get to class, a list of ten vocabulary words is on the board. I usually use five social studies words and five science words. Students write sentences showing correct usage of each word for one point per word and define the words for two points per word. There are thirty possible points. Each day, I tally the points and keep a cumulative score for the month. The top five students are posted each day. The top five for the month are in the Einstein Club and win a prize (pencil, candy bar, etc.) and a picture of Einstein. Tying It All Together: Words get taken off the Einstein list if the majority of the class gets the definition for the day. Otherwise, words stay on until enough students can define them. This provides a type of pre-testing. At the end of the week all of the words show up on a vocabulary quiz. This is the only portion of the activity that is graded; the daily vocabulary is not.