STRATEGY OF THE MONTH – November-December 2015
Building Vocabulary – Creating Crossword Puzzles
Purpose: Develop student’s understanding of the spelling and definitions of vocabulary.
Estimated Duration: 60 minutes
Goals:
1. SWBAT develop definitions for vocabulary by creating a crossword puzzle with vocabulary.
Materials Needed:
1. Graph Paper
2. Vocabulary List
Teacher Instructions:
1. Show example crossword puzzle.
2. Model how to plan the structure of the crossword puzzle. Emphasize that words must intersect at common letters.
3. Model what kinds of hints to provide in the crossword puzzle. Emphasize that students may not use the provided definition as a hint, but that they may create their own definitions. These hints are what are being assessed.
4. Provide students with vocabulary lists and graph paper. It’s recommended that teachers provide more words than are required to be in the puzzle.
5. Students create their crossword puzzle out of some of the words on the list. If not every word on the list is in every crossword puzzle, students in step 6 will have to reread the vocabulary lists and compare them to the hints.
6. Students exchange crossword puzzles and complete a peer’s crossword puzzle.
Crossword Vocabulary(download lesson)