I love it when I can make the Dictionary FUN for kids - and yes, I actually have kids ASKING me in the halls when they can play "that cool dictionary game" again.
The game is called dictionary dash and it is a way for me to make learning about the dictionary and practicing using the dictionary fun for the kids. I take the students vocabulary words and/or spelling words for the week. I go ahead and look them up in the dictionary ahead of time and write down the page number I find it on and the guide words on the page where I find the word. Then, I type up the words in this cool program that goes along with our Smart Board - the program has a "window shade" that I can pull down to reveal words - so I type out the words I want them to find and below that I type in the page number and guide words. I have the kids start with their dictionaries closed, then I "reveal" the word and the mad dash begins to find the word in the dictionary. When they find the word, they are suppose to put a finger on the word and raise their other hand. I call on them and ask them to give me the page number and the guide words. I reveal the answer to see if they get it right, and if they do *sometimes* I give them a prize (usually a piece of candy). The kids get SO into it and they love finding the words. As we go through the game I point out things like where the pronunciation of a word is in the definition, how they find out how to make a word plural etc..
I started doing this lesson this week with grades 2 & 3 and it has not only been a hit with the kids, but the teachers have loved what I am doing too. I told the teachers that have signed up for this lesson to make sure they sign up again and around the holidays I will do a holiday word version of dictionary dash.
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2 comments:
I just left a comment asking for Dictionary Dash instructions, but now I have found it! I'm not fibbing when I'm telling you that I'm reading your whole blog!
I play a similar game with my grade 3s called Dictionary Detective. With a partner, I have them look up a word to answer my question. I try to highlight all the uses for a dictionary - meaning, spelling, pronounciation, information about the word (part of speach, syllables etc.) Sometimes I give them the spelling of a word - like when I want to know how to pronoounce it and sometimes I just tell them the word so they can tell me how to spell it. They love it!
Again, thanks for all the great ideas... I hope you are not getting tired of all my comments.
WOW Kim you HAVE been going through my whole blog! Glad I could give you some inspiration - I'm a little wacky sometimes but I do love my job! Thanks for reading!
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