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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