Finally! Vocabulary Card Freebies are Done!

Hello Friends,

I have been working so hard this week!  All of my vocabulary words are now ready to go.  I have been working on this project since May and it's finally finished except for the printing and cutting.  So what are these cards I've been working so hard on?  Here's a picture and the explanation follows.

A few of my large vocabulary cards.

My school district requires that I use the SRA  Imagine It reading program.  In addition, I'm being required by my principal to use the Write Up a Storm program.  Last spring a group of 1st grade teachers from my district got together and searched through the first grade Imagine It program and selected vocabulary words either directly from the story, or words that go along with the stories.  I used those words to create these word cards.

Now, Write Up a Storm has you teach vocabulary along with parts of speech.  So all my card files are each done as a separate part of speech.  In first grade we don't deal with adverbs.  Articles and words that start sentences are called "starter words".  Prepositional phrases and words that tell where or when are called tagalongs (because they tag along behind the other words in the sentence).  To help ESL students learn past tense better, all verbs are presented in past tense, then we practice all the tenses.

We will set up a word wall with each part of speech.  Students learn an action along with each word and they are practiced often.  This is what I use the large word cards for.

I have a smaller version of each word, too.  These are printed on colored paper because in Write Up a Storm each part of speech has a color code.  So I print them like this:  starter words are white, adjectives are orange, nouns are red, verbs are green and tagalongs are blue.  These cards are put into a ziplock bag.  Students place them face down in piles according to color.  They turn the cards over and create sentences on a color coded mat that goes: white, orange, red, green, blue.   The beginning of the year starts with only 3 word sentences:  starter word, noun, verb.  A few months in we add tagalongs, and finally, adjectives.  I threw the old ones out from last year and haven't made the new ones for this year yet, or I'd have a better picture for you.  These ones are on white paper and don't have the mat under, but they should give you the idea.

A plumber scoured.  (The bottle cap is a period.)

The badger practiced before the holiday.

My friendly traveler acted at the podium.

My students last year loved using the cards to make sentences, and sometimes they come out silly or don't make sense.  Sometimes the students need to add in a direct object to go with the verb.  Another thing that can be done with these cards is to cut the picture side and the word side apart and have the kid match the word to the picture.

I teach in a school with a very high number of students who are refugees.  We have more than 30 languages spoken in my school if I remember right.  This really helps a lot with the ESL kids, but also with the students of poverty who haven't had language modeled as much in the home.

Finally, I will not teach every single one of these words every year.  I will work on 8-10 words a week depending on the needs of my class.  Since I was making cards for a large group of people, I tried to put some extras in to be used at teacher discretion.

All of the files are free, I just ask that you leave feedback and let me know if you run into any issues.    You'll note that the last section of each group of words contains seasonal words and phrases.

You can download any and all of the files at my teacherspayteachers store.  I suggest you get the excel file which lists all the words first.

Excel list of all words.

Large cards for word wall:

• Adjectives
• Nouns
• Starter Words and blank templates
• Tagalongs (prepositional phrases and time words)
• Verbs (past tense)

Small cards for word work (in color):

• Adjectives
• Nouns
• Starter Words and blank templates
• Tagalongs
• Verbs

Small cards for word work (in grayscale)

• Adjectives
• Nouns
• Starter words and blank templates
• Tagalongs
• Verbs

Whew!  That's all.  I don't know if anyone else will find these useful, but I hope so.

Joell