Writing Center 8
Vocabulary
Goal
Students will participate in word study activities in order to learn and use new
vocabulary in writing.
Basic Center
Materials
 White board
 Dry erase markers
 Eraser
 Picture and/or word cards related to content
Preparation
Teacher will:
 Prepare picture/word cards organized by categories (clothing, furniture,
states). These words may come from content area word banks.
 Plan read alouds and interactive writing lessons to familiarize students with
riddles. Use words from word banks to write riddles.
 Demonstrate how to play the game “Picture This” by describing an object
from the word bank using its attributes.
Game Directions:
1. Students play in pairs.
2. Player 1 chooses a picture/word card and thinks of attributes to describe
the object. Player 1 says “Picture This” and orally gives one clue about
the word/picture.
3. Player 2 uses a white board and marker to record a guess of the answer
to the “Picture This” riddle.
4. Player 2 shows the board and reads the guess to Player 1. If the guess is
correct, the two players switch roles. If the guess is incorrect, Player 2
gives additional clues one at a time until Player 2 correctly identifies the
word/picture.
Procedures
Students will:
 Find a partner and choose a group of cards.
 Play “Picture This” trying to use precise language giving as few clues as
possible for your partner to guess the riddle.
Phonemic Awareness/Phonics
Beyond the Basic Center
Additional Center Ideas:
1. Prepare a restaurant center with menus, props, and order pads. Students
assume roles of the customer and server. Customers read and order from the
menu while the server writes the order.
2. Gather an assortment of magazines. Students search for pictures that
correspond to a given category (tools, ocean animals, school supplies). On a
large sheet of paper, students write the category and glue chosen pictures.
Students write labels or captions for pictures to create a personal word bank.
3. Use interactive editing to begin a content area word bank. Post word bank
where students can easily access it as a resource. Provide graph paper for
students to create a word search using the content area words. Students
solve each other’s word searches.
4. Read aloud and discuss books that contain idiomatic expressions.
Demonstrate how to use an idiom dictionary to find meanings of unusual
expressions. Prepare sentence strips with a variety of idiomatic expressions.
Students choose an idiom to write in a sentence and illustrate. Provide an
idiom dictionary as a resource. Illustrations may be serious or comical.
5. Encourage students to look for words that have common derivatives. Discuss
word origins and how many words come from Greek and Latin roots. Explore
this principle using interactive writing. Prepare word cards that contain
common roots (bio, geo, graph) and star shaped pieces of paper. Students
choose a word card and write the root in the center of the star along with its
meaning. Students generate other words that have the same root on the other
points of the star. Provide a dictionary as a resource.
Additional Resources
Brown, M. The Important Book. HarperCollins Publishers, 1951. ISBN
0060207205
Charlip, R. Fortunately. Simon & Schuster, 1993. ISBN 0689716605
Frasier, D. Miss Alaineus: A Vocabulary Disaster. Harcourt, 2000. ISBN
0152021639
Fry, E., Kress, J., Fountoukidis, D. The Reading Teacher’s Book of Lists, Third
Edition. Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1993. ISBN 0130348937
Hambleton, V. So, You Wanna Be a Writer?: How to Write, Get Published, and
Maybe Even Make It Big! Beyond Words Publishing, 2001. ISBN 1582700435
Lassen, C. R., Sea Treasures. The Book Company, 2001. ISBN 1740470664
Terban, M., Dictionary of Idioms (More Than 600 Phrases, Sayings, and
Expressions). Scholastic, 1996. ISBN 0590381571
Young, S. The Scholastic RHYMING Dictionary. Scholastic, Inc., 1994. ISBN
0590494600