English I Through ESOL - The School District of Palm Beach County

Beginning Vocabulary Activities
Line of Fortune
Objective: Identify and recreate words and word parts from spelling clues.
Procedure: (This activity is very similar to Hangman, but involves more complex team decisionmaking.)
Choose a word from the lesson’s vocabulary and write the appropriate number of
dashes to represent the letters of the word. For example, for the word dicot you would draw five
dashes. A team member guesses a letter. If the letter is not found in the word, write the letter
under the dashes and move on to the next team. If their letter is found in the word, then write
the letter on the appropriate dash. When a team guesses correctly, they have the option to
guess the word. If they choose not to guess the word, call on the next team. If they choose to
guess and successfully guess the word, then they receive ten points minus the number of letters
written under the dashes from incorrect previous guesses, and the game is over. If they choose
to guess and do not guess the word, then they lose points equal to the number of letters written
under the dashes, and you call on the next team. If no team can guess the word before ten
incorrect letters are written under the dashes then all teams lose points equal to the number of
teams in the class.
Concentration
Objective: Identify vocabulary words and their meanings.
Preparation: On twenty 8” x 5” index cards, write the numbers 1-20, one number per card.
Place these cards in order, 3 per line in a pocket chart. On another 20 index cards, write, one
word per card, 10 vocabulary items from the lesson 2 times each. Shuffle these cards and place
them behind the numbered cards.
Procedure: Teams will match the vocabulary words with their meanings. Choose one team to
go first. A member of that team picks two numbers. Remove those cards from the chart, leaving
the words behind them visible to the class. The student reads the words, with the team’s
assistance if needed. If the words match, leave them showing and give the team a point. If they
do not match, replace the numbers and call on the next team.
Option: Instead of writing each noun 2 times, write it once in the singular and once in the plural.
When working with verbs, write one in the present tense and one in the past. Matching
variations such as these helps the students understand that, despite certain differences in the
visible spelling of two words, they are still semantically related at a deeper level.
Romeo and Juliet: Lesson 5: Concentration:
Match vocabulary words with their meanings:
wild
crazy, violent, uncontrollable
plague
disease, infection
interfere
get in the way, obstruct, hinder
prove
show, verify, provide evidence
pale
colorless, pallid, ashen
poison
venom, toxin
join
unite, stick together
honor
respect, pay tribute to
victim
injured party, sufferer
torchlight
light, fire, lantern
English I Through ESOL: Romeo and Juliet
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