VocabBall and Active Language Acquisition

UPDATE: Ms. Joseph created: "Le Grande Balloon," a version of Ms.  Lyttle's StemBall to learn French! New Photos Below!

To use a little common core jargon and poor grammar: "Tier two vocab is where it's at."  The best thing you can do for your students is give them strong thinking skills and vocabulary. (Here is a short word list resource-- list of most used common core vocabulary. Use them in your lessons, have them on the board, offer students extra credit for working the words into their verbal responses, presentations, or written work in your class.)

I also recommend active motion-based learning. Strategies like Ms. Lyttle's Stemball help students to learn basic word roots and is one way to get a lot of bang for your teaching-time buck. The photos below to explain the game. To give it a try, you can use beach balls from th dollar store or even write on balloons for an economical game.

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This ball has the most used word roots, prefixes and stems for these 6th graders English Language Arts vocabulary.

This ball helps Ms. Joseph's class' learn French vocabulary. Scroll down to see how the game works.

How to Play Vocab Ball:

Students toss the ball and then...

They define the word or stem at their thumb.

For World Language, students may conjugate verbs or...

translate or use the foreign word in a sentence.

It's that easy! Give it a try, or else... (Students wanted to do a TOUGH pose here! Middle school is awesome!)