ENHANCE Your VOCABULARY

With TONE

Teacher Resources: Vocabulary Activities

Activities for Week #1

Theme: GOOD EFFORT – A GOOD WORKER

COMMENDABLE – Worthy of recognition or praiseDILIGENT – Quietly and steadily working, especially in detail or exactnessEXEMPLARY – Worthy of imitationINDUSTRIOUS – Hard-working PERSISTENT – Refusing to give up or let go

Exercise A:

Some of the words on the list have other words closely associated with them that give you a hint about the word’s meaning. Can you explain what these words have to do with our list?

Example: Persist Industry Commend

Exercise B:

Create a compliment:Compliment someone for a job well done, using these starters: Example: Amanda, your clay pot was so exemplary that we all imitated it.

A. A school team wins a tough matchB. A classmate brings a grade upC. Your report card is the best everD. Someone works hard at a mathematical concept and becomes a masterE. You are a boss giving someone a raise

Your own?

Activities for Week #2

THEME: OUTLOOK - Degrees of looking at things

OPTIMISTIC – Expecting everything to come out all right; hopeful; OPTIMISTPESSIMISTIC – Tending to expect the worst possible outcome; PESSIMIST PRAGMATIC – Willing to see things as they really are and deal with them sensibly;

PRAGMATISTREALISTIC – True to life or nature; REALISTSKEPTICAL – Tending to doubt or question things; SKEPTIC

Exercise A: Meaning Spectrum

Two of the words on our list are antonyms – opposites. Can you arrange the other words so that the meaning changes from one extreme to the other?

optimistic _______________ _______________ _______________ pessimistic

Exercise B: Act it Out

The following statements have different meanings depending on the TONE that you are using. Use your acting skills and say the following as an optimist, pessimist, pragmatist, realist, or skeptic.

1. You what me to do what?2. I believe that.3. Yes, I’ll do that right away.4. You won the lottery5. That is a beautiful baby.

Activities for Week #8

THEME: BEGINNER -A person who is inexperienced

AMATEUR -Practicing an art or occupation for the love of it, but not as a professionDILETTENTE- A superficial amateur; someone who claims an interest but lacks real Knowledge (of the subject)FLEDGLING- A young birdNEOPHYTE - Someone who is new, young or inexperiencedNOVICE - An apprentice or beginner in any business or occupation; often associated with nuns

Exercise A:

Which word fits best? Improvise a sentence about…

A. Your first attempt at something new.B. Watching a beginner’s dance class.C. The dreams of an American Idol contestant.D. An awful singer who shouldn’t sing the National Anthem.

(Suggested: A – neophyte, novice; B – fledgling; C – amateur; D – dilettante)

Exercise B:Instructions – Project the page titled “Beginners Pictures” on the next page and talk through the hints for each word. Answer key is below for teacher reference.

Olympians are supposed to be amateurs, competing for the love of sports

Baby bird

“The Sound of Music” – Maria is dressed differently. She’s in the Novitiate. She’s a “starter nun.” You can be a novice at many things.

She’s trying to pass off a cat as a fur coat because she’s pretending to be something that she’s not.

This character from The Matrix is called “Neo.” Neo means new. (Neologism, neonatal, neo..what? Neophyte).

Compare/Contrast

Instructions: Choose any two words from this week’s Words of the Week list and explain how they are similar and how they are different.

Example: Arrogant and ProudBoth words Arrogant has a negative connotation. Arrogant people are full of themselves and try to prove that they are better than others.Proud has a more positive connotation. People who are proud have a high self-opinion but do not boast it to others as much as arrogant people.

Your Turn! ______________________________ and ______________________________

Similarities:

Differences:

Antonyms of the Same Degree

The Words of the Week are all synonyms, but they are different degrees of “severity.” For example, to “adore” is less severe than to “idolize.”

Instructions: Choose three of the Words of the Week and rank them in order of severity (least to most). Then, come up with an antonym for each that is similar in degree of severity.

Example: Persistent Stubborn Obstinate Willing Yielding Relenting

Note how “persistent” is less severe than “obstinate.” Their antonyms, “willing” and “relenting,” are opposites, but of the same degree.

Your Turn! ______________________, ______________________, _____________________

Antonyms: ______________________, ______________________, _____________________

4-Square Vocabulary

This activity is adaptable for your content area(s), your lessons, and/or your students’ needs. It’s quite simple. Have your students create a 4-blocked graphic organizer for each vocabulary word. Then designate what each block requires of the student. Here are c]some variations of what can be done with this activity:

1. Vocabulary word: __________________________________

Part of speech: Synonyms:

Antonyms: Use the word in an original sentence:

2. Vocabulary word: _________________________________

Page number in your text where you can find the word:

Rewrite the sentence in which the word is used:

What does this word remind you of or think about?

Use the word in an original sentence:

3. Vocabulary word: ____________________________

Root word and its meaning: Suffix and its meaning:

Prefix and its meaning: Use the word in an original sentence:

Famous People

Can you think of a famous person in history or current events who could be said to have the qualities of this theme? Describe them using the words.

Nature

Many of our words can be used to describe actions in the plant, animal, mineral worlds and more. Think of something non-human that the words could be applied to.

DerivativesA. (Teacher lists root words that our word is derived from or related toB. Some of the words on the list have other words closely associated with them that give

you a hint about the word’s meaning. Can you guess what these words have to do with our list?

(Example – Good Effort Theme: Example – Exemplary; Persist – Persistent, Industry - industrious; Commend –commendable)

_____________________________________________________________________________

Create It

Create a compliment using a word from the list. Others: instruction, question, exclamation

???__________

Improv

Which word fits best? Improvise a sentence using your word…F. In a sporting situation.G. Referring to your skills at schoolH. Something good or bad about this weekendI. You and a co-worker at workJ. When you are thinking deeply about somethingK. When you have a strong emotion that you want to hide or let outL. On a dateM. AT the dinner table

.

Music

Which instrument, music genre, or performer could be said to represent or use each word? Explain why.

Visual Arts

Which medium, work of art, or style could be said to represent or invoke each word? Explain why.

Meaning Spectrum

A. Synonyms – Can you arrange the words so that they go from mild to strong? Can you give them a numerical value from 1 to 5?

B. Opposites –Perhaps two of the words on our list are antonyms – opposites. Can you arrange the other words so that the meaning changes from one extreme to the other?

-2 -1 0 +1 +2

Musical Meaning Spectrum

A. If this were music, which word would start a crescendo and which would finish it? Arrange the synonyms from soft to loud.

B. Musicians, arrange the antonyms – opposites – in a musical way – perhaps loud-soft-loud.

Act it Out

The following statements have different meanings depending on the TONE that you are using. Use your acting skills and say the following using one of the words on our list.

1. You what me to do what?2. I believe that.3. Yes, I’ll do that right away.4. You won the lottery5. That is a beautiful baby.6. Others?

Mannequins

Students guide other students to act out a pose that shows the word or theme.

Draw it

Draw a picture that represents or illustrates a word and have others guess it.

Describe an Object or Person in the Room

Find a complimentary way to use the words of the week to describe someone or something in the classroom. If it could be a negative connotation, assign it to a fictitious Joe Schmo or Ima Goodstudent. Write the sentence on the board and have students guess at what you are implying. Have the students work in pairs to write their own sentences and have their partner guess.

Context Clues

Instructions: Assign a vocabulary word to each person in the classroom. Each student must come up with three sentences for each word that includes context clues that give the vocabulary word’s meaning. The topics for the three sentences are: 1) Something in your life. 2) Something in the classroom. 3) Free/About anything the student desires.

If time permits have them share with a partner or group OR have students share with the classroom but leaving the vocabulary word blank and have the other students try and figure out which vocabulary word is being used. Allow students to use the Words of the Week list to help them guess. This could be utilized as a review or a game.

Example:

Vocabulary Word: LETHARGIC

I was feeling so lethargic that I could barely bring myself to brush my teeth this morning.

Jamal is so lethargic that he did not even do his warm up that was super easy.

During the offseason players become so lethargic that they put on a lot of weight.

Roll the Dice

Can be played as a game in pairs, small groups, or as a whole class activity.

Roll a die. The number that comes up corresponds to one the tasks in the picture on the right. If completed as a whole class, everyone must do the task that is rolled. If done in pairs or small groups, each person rolls and completes the corresponding task.

Continue rolling until each person has done two, three, four, etc. different tasks.

Pictionary!

This would be a good review game at the end of the week, after discussing all five Words of the Week.

Groups of 4 Two people draw the same word Partners guess The first team to win 3/5 matches wins. 

Nostalgia

Tell a timed 30 second story (fiction or nonfiction) about a time that illustrates the vocabulary wordORUses the desired term.

Class must guess the term from a list.

Comic Strip With a five-panel document students will generate images or a story where the character's emotion is heightened throughout the five panels. Each panel should indicate the word that is being displayed.

Hot Seat

Have one student sit in the front of the classroom on a chair facing away from the blackboard. On the board you will write a vocabulary word but the person in the front of the room is not allowed to look at it. The student will ask yes or no questions to his classmates to determine what the word might be. The student has 10 questions available until he must guess what the word is. You can make this an individual contest or you can have the class separated into several teams to add a competitive element.

Vocabulary Toss

This game requires a chalkboard eraser, or small sponge, and a wastebasket. Divide your class into two teams and have them stand in two single-file lines parallel to each other. This game combines a vocabulary guessing game with a basketball shooting game. Ask the player at the front of one team to define a vocabulary word. If he gets it right, his team gets a point and he has a chance to earn a second point if he makes the eraser into the basket. If he gets the word wrong, the player on the other team has a chance to answer it and shoot the basket. Keep rotating players until everybody gets at least one turn. The team with the most points at the end wins.

Funny Stories

First, write definitions specific to each of this week’s Words of the Week. Although they are all synonyms, each one’s definition should be slightly different from the others. Then write a wacky, funny paragraph that uses all five of this week’s Words of the Week.