Introduce Science Vocabulary with Creative and Engaging Activities

In science class, students need to understand lots of unfamiliar vocabulary words that may leave them feeling confused. Introducing some of these words at the beginning of a unit can help your students’ comprehension of the material and boost their confidence. Through playing games, asking students to illustrate new words, and having students find connections between different terms, you can help your students feel more comfortable with new scientific terms. 

One vocabulary game that my students enjoyed is charades. It plays on different intelligences than other science activities, so in addition to teaching science vocabulary, the game motivates some students who might be less engaged with other approaches. Another game we played is similar to charades but involves drawing rather than acting. An earlier blogpost I wrote has more details on these games:

Low-Prep Games for Teaching Vocabulary

After reviewing new vocabulary words, you can ask students to illustrate the words in some way. By doing this, you can create a colorful display of student work that also serves to remind students of the meaning of challenging science vocabulary. Here is a link to a blogpost that explains more about illustrating words related to plant cell organelles:

Illustrating Science Vocabulary: Plant Cell Organelles

Hexagonal thinking is an approach to teaching new terms that was created by Betsy Potash. Her lessons mostly center around language arts, but this technique can also be applied to teaching vocabulary in other subjects, including science. Hexagonal thinking involves working in a group to discuss how words in a list relate to one another. Of course, in order to discover connections between the words, students need to understand the definitions of these words. Hexagonal thinking can be used to introduce a unit or to provide a summary after a topic has been covered. To learn more about hexagonal thinking, you can read this blogpost:

Hexagonal Thinking:

Connections and Discussion in Science Class

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Back-to-School Activities for Building Classroom Community

In the first days of school, you may want to select activities that help build community in your class as students ease back into academic life. I will share several such activities that my students have enjoyed in the past. 

A very simple activity is to give students Venn diagrams to complete about themselves. This can be done with student pairs, as with deskmates, or with groups of three using a three-circle Venn diagram. It helps to brainstorm with the class some categories of information that could be written in the Venn diagrams, such as hobbies, talents, sports, music, family members, pets, and favorites: foods, colors, animals, places, seasons, weather. As students fill out the Venn diagram, they get to know each other better and find some things they have in common. A blogpost I wrote earlier has more details about using Venn diagrams in the classroom:

Classroom Icebreaker / Getting to Know You Activity: Venn Diagrams

A popular game I have used is Two Truths and a Lie. Each member of the class, including the teacher, writes their name along with two true facts and one lie about themself. The teacher reads each paper, and everyone guesses which is the lie before the student reveals the correct answer. Students love this game because they see how much they already know about each other while being surprised by things they never knew about their friends! It also provides new students with an opportunity to introduce themselves to their classmates. One year I used this game to reveal to my class that I was pregnant!

To beautify your classroom with student art at the beginning of the school year, have them create collages about themselves using images and words from magazines. Making collages encourages students to learn more about their classmates' interests and style. As they work, they talk about the images and words they are using and help one another find pictures in the magazines. This activity takes a little preparation, but asking parents and other staff members for magazine donations makes it fairly easy. Here is a link to an earlier blogpost about making collages:

Beginning of the School Year Activity: Decorate Room with Student Collages

A game similar to Two Truths and a Lie is Snowball Fight. In this game, everyone writes three true things about themself but omits their name. After crumpling up the paper, the class has a "snowball fight" for about ten seconds (or longer). Everyone then picks up a piece of paper and opens it. You may have students walk around the room and find the person who wrote their paper. Another variation is to ask students to take turns reading their papers aloud as the entire class attempts to guess who wrote it. To help students keep control of their bodies during the snowball fight, you can make a rule that students need to be touching their chair or desk as they throw their snowballs. It's helpful to know your students a bit before trying this game to be sure that students can handle the snowball fight.

One last activity I will mention can be used to preview vocabulary for a coming unit while decorating the classroom with student art. This involves giving groups of students vocabulary words to illustrate. Within the group, individual students can choose which word to draw so long as the group includes all of the words. Here is a link to a blogpost I wrote about this activity:

Illustrating Science Vocabulary: 

Plant Cell Organelles

I hope these activities give you some ideas for beginning the school year, and I hope that you have a great first week of school!

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