WORD OF THE WEEK (a.k.a. WOW ) Rational: Vocabulary is a foundation of improved literacy. Direct instruction of the Word of the Week (WOW) can help with our students vocabulary acquisition and text comprehension. These are just some suggestions of how to use the Word of the Week in your classroom. Procedure: You will receive a WOW Poster for you to display in your classrooms. These posters will have sheet protectors for you to be able to display the current WOW and change out the old ones for the new. At the end of the week, you will be receiving an email containing the WOW, as well as printable documents to put into your sheet protectors. If you re interested in having these done for you, please email Dani de Jesus at dani.dejesus@mauihigh.org. If you sign up for this service, a student will be coming by at the end of each week to change out the WOW for you. You don t have to print it out or do anything...it ll all be done for you. At the beginning of each week, please choose one of the activities below to do in your first class of that week. That way we are able to hit all of our students at one time. If you re unable to do it that period, try to get that same period later on that week. The Daily Announcements read every morning from 8:00 8:05am will also include the WOW. Please use this opportunity to reinforce and review what you ve already taught to your students. Ideas: These are quick activities (bellringers and exit passes) that you can do in your classroom to reinforce the building of vocabulary. These are meant to be quick and to work for your classroom and your students, but adapt as need be. At the end of this packet, there are some extension activities listed if you re interested in taking more time to take it to the next level. In addition to the explicit teaching of these words, please REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW! Students need plentiful opportunities to use and respond to these words in order to learn not only what a word means but also how to use that word in a variety of contexts. Example: word part of speech definition sample sentence
WOW ACTIVITIES: What you give to the students What students try to figure out Instructions Activity #1: Figure out the definition with the WOW underlined pronunciation 1. Write or project the sentence provided to you with WOW underlined on the board. You can also create a new 4. Ask students to work in pairs to try to figure out the definition and the part of speech. 5. Solicit a few volunteer pairs for some ideas. Go through the ideas. 6. Reveal the definition and the part of speech. Discuss context clues they used to figure out the meaning. Activity #2: Prefix/Suffix prefixes/suffixes related words 5. Ask students to work together to identify the root word or any prefixes/suffixes that the word has. 6. Get ideas from students and write on board. 7. Then have students work together to think of related works, prefixes or suffixes. 8. Call on volunteers to get ideas and write them on the board. Activity #3: Synonyms/Antonyms synonyms/ antonyms 1. Write/project WOW on board with definition and part of speech.
Activity #4: Bellringer/Exit pass: Write it ALL down. 5. Ask students to write the WOW, part of speech, definition, and sample sentence in their notebook (or a piece of paper). Note: Skip this if you don t have time. 6. On a piece of paper, have students create two columns - one for synonyms, one for antonyms. 7. Give students ONE minute to come up with as many synonyms/antonyms of the WOW that they can. 8. Then have students collaborate to compare lists and see if their ideas work. Let students know they need to come up with a few ideas because they might get called on. 9. Solicit ideas from random students and write on board. Go through and discuss the ideas. 10. Repeat the WOW and its definition. 1. Write/project WOW, part of speech, definition, and sample sentence on board. 2. Quickly number off students 1-4. 3. Tell them they are responsible for ONE part of the WOW: a. #1 - spelling of WOW b. #2 - part of speech of WOW c. #3 - definition d. #4 sample sentence 4. Introduce WOW. 5. Ask the students to repeat the word to focus on 6. Go over part of speech, definition, and sample 7. Remind students that they are responsible for remembering their specific part of the WOW. 8. Go through your regularly-scheduled lesson. Exit Pass 9. About 5 minutes before the end of class, have students either take out a small piece of scratch paper or provide one for them. 10. Tell them they have 3 minutes to write down ALL FOUR parts of the WOW on their paper and need to turn it in as their exit pass. 11. Students can get their information from any student they want, but know to seek out #3s, for example, if they only need the definition. 12. Allow students to walk around or yell out answers to make it fun, as long as each student writes down all four parts on their own paper.
Activity #5: Look up the definition, part of speech 13. Have students turn in the exit pass with the information on it. 1. Buy candy. 2. Write/project WOW on board. 3. Introduce WOW. 4. Ask the students to repeat the word to focus on 5. Ask students to take out phones. If they don t have one, they can either get to a computer or partner with someone who does. 6. Tell class that the first student (or students) to look up the word and provide the definition, part of speech and a sample sentence and run up and write it on the board under the WOW, gets a prize (candy or whatever else you want to give). 7. Note: You can have multiple students come up, but first one to be complete and accurate wins. 8. Verify answers. 9. Give prize. Exit Pass 10. At some point throughout your lesson, erase the WOW information from your board. 11. About 2 minutes before the end of class, don t even tell students to take out the phone, but say that the first to come up and write down the WOW (spelled correctly), with part of speech, definition, and sample sentence also wins a prize. Students can utilize their phones again if they need to. 12. Note: You can have multiple students come up, but first one to be complete and accurate wins. Activity #6: Text a Friend different sample sentence 5. Have students work together (in groups of 2s/3s) to create a different sentence using the WOW. 6. Ask them to text a friend with the sentence they
created and show you for points (or some form of credit or candy). 7. Option: Download software that allows students to send a text to a number and see their texts displayed on your projector screen (e.g., firetext.com, textlive.com, iwall.com.ar). 8. Note: Fees may apply. Please check with students/parents. Activity #7: Picture picture 4. Have students write down all parts of WOW in his/her notebook. Note: Skip this part if you don t have enough time. 5. Ask students to come up with an image of the DEFINITION (not the word) and draw a picture in their notebook. 6. Note: If there s time, have a few volunteers draw their pictures on the board. Activity #8: Charades a physical motion to represent the definition 5. Have students work together in pairs and give them three minutes to come up with some type of physical motion (or skit) to represent the word. 6. Walk around and check in on groups. 7. Ask for a few volunteers to share their motion. Activity #9: Graphic Organizer (i.e., Frayer Model) varies depending on graphic organizer (e.g., picture, synonyms/ antonyms, examples/ Activity: 1. Make copies of graphic organizer. 2. Write/project WOW on board with part of speech 3. Introduce WOW. 4. Ask the students to repeat the word to focus on
non-examples) 5. Go over part of speech, definition, and sample 6. Have students either work together or own their own to complete the graphic organizer. 7. How you collect and grade is up to your discretion. Activity #10: Bellringer/Reinforcement: WOW in action examples of the WOW in action 1. Conduct any of the activities that you prefer at the beginning of the week. Reinforcement: 2. Tell students that you will provide (fillin-the-blank with whatever is appropriate for your classroom, e.g., candy, extra-credit points, a prize, respect) if they find the WOW being used outside of the classroom. They can show you
an article online (maybe on their phone), a newspaper clipping, a video segment with the word being used, etc. Other ideas using Technology Wordle: http://www.wordle.net/ Wordle is a toy for generating word clouds from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share. Google: www.google.com Have students work together in pairs and Google the word on their phones (or computer) for definitions, context, and images. Then conduct a mini discussion about all the different ways or contexts the word is used. Twitter www.twitter.com Have students create a tweet using the WOW remembering that the maximum length of a tweet is 140 characters.