Building Vocabulary

Vocabulary is a huge part of student success in reading and on tests. We have been working on building vocabulary all year but it can get boring and be redundant so I came up with some ways to spice it up.

I really like the Fancy Nancy books because of how cute the pictures are and the words that Nancy uses. She has a great vocabulary.

To engage my students and introduced fancy vocabulary I dressed as Fancy Nancy. I had all of the stuff at home because my girls love to play dress up. I really loved an excuse to wear a feather boa and crown to school. I am pretty sure half of my students thought I am a crazy but the point of using fancy words will stick. I added the "fancy" words to my boa and wore them. I think it is a bonus that we can use fancy words in poetry during poetry month.


Next I added academic vocabulary to an old t-shirt wore it around throughout the day and week. If a student came up to me and used it correctly their name would be entered in a drawing. I added new words to the t-shirt.

I created a display on my door that said Build Your Vocabulary With Us. When a new word was introduced my teacher helper of the day would go and add a post-it of that word to our door.

I created a build a word station with a vocabulary of the day book, word of the day book, a fun dictionary and stamps. I included a white board that I had students add the words to and the students could go and work at the station.

I have a magnetic letter board on my storage cabinet and a chalk board on my filling cabinet and we added our words there too. Each time saying the word and definition as a class.

I think that surrounding my class with the vocabulary really helped build their vocabulary! Next week weather permitting we will write our words outside on the sidewalk and match the definition to them.  What do you do in your classroom?