Vocabulary Building Activities

Semantic Map for Grades K-2

Students create semantic maps to visually connect prior knowledge and experiences to new vocabulary and concepts, using webbing and branching associations to build understanding, activate learning, and support formative assessment.

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Semantic Map for Grades 3-12

A semantic map visually connects prior knowledge to new vocabulary, using webbing to link concepts. It supports learning, activates knowledge, and serves as a formative assessment, completed individually or collaboratively.

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Letter to Future Self

Students write a letter to their future self describing what they’ve learned and what their future self should remember from the lesson or unit.

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Collage for Future Self

Students create collages reflecting their learning for their future selves, using images to capture key concepts. Teachers save and return them later, allowing students to review and activate prior knowledge before future lessons.

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Jumpstart Journal

In this activity, students use Jumpstart Journals to share prior knowledge, activate understanding of topics, concepts, and vocabulary, prepare for learning, and support formative assessment through warm-up or bell work activities, paired with strategies like Semantic Maps.

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Comic Strips

Students create 3- to 5-panel comic strips illustrating targeted Tier 3 vocabulary words in real-life scenarios, applying their understanding of low-frequency, content-specific words individually, with a partner, or in groups.

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Possible Sentences

In this activity, students interact with Tier 3 vocabulary words by predicting meanings, evaluating definitions, and revising predictions through text analysis and class discussion, fostering understanding individually or with a partner.

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