Get your students up and involved in engaging vocabulary review games with the literature, writing, and grammar terms every middle school student needs to know. These versatile cards with words and definitions can be used for a variety of whole-class activities or in a learning station rotation in your classroom.

What’s Included

This file includes two sets of cards for grades 6-12.

Set 1 ♦ colorful design that you can print on cardstock and laminate for long-lasting cards to use in games and activities in your classroom

Set 2 ♦ black and white low-ink set that you can print on colored paper or to give to students for a study aid

The front of each card has an ELA academic vocabulary term. The back of the card has the term, the strand (literature, grammar, writing, etc.) in which the term would be used, and a brief definition.

Note: the card backs in Set 2 do not show the term so that these can be used as flashcards for study.

Contents

(1) Product overview

(2) Tips for printing PDF files

(3-28) Color version vocabulary game cards

(29-54) Low ink version vocabulary game cards

(55-57) Editable card templates

(58) Terms of use

How to Use

I hot-glued magnets to the back of a small plastic storage box so that I could keep these cards right beside my Academic Vocabulary Word Wall. A sandwich size plastic bag would work as well.

I begin the year with all of the cards in my file drawer and move cards into the box on the board as we add those terms to the word wall and our academic vocabulary dictionaries. That way, I know anything in the box is a word I have already taught in class.

There are so many ways we use the vocabulary game cards:

♦ Time filler for last 1 – 2 minutes of class

Randomly pull a card from the box and read the definition aloud. The first student to give the correct term gets to pull the next card. If the class needs some extra motivation, sometimes I’ll give a mint or a sticker or some other tiny prize.

♦ Whole class game

My students love the game where they roll a die to determine what they have to do with the word. There are several variations of this, but we do this: 1 = Describe it, 2 = Draw it, 3 = Sing it, 4 = Act it out, 5 = Use it in a sentence, and 6 = Free choice. One option to make sure everyone is involved is to make this like charades in that the class doesn’t know the word and has to guess what the “performer” is describing, etc.

♦ Learning station activity

If you use centers or station rotations, this can be a fun addition. You could have the same game as above, or there are lots of other game options for small groups.

Example: Print single-sided cards rather than back-to-back. Play Go Fish so that students have to make pairs of cards with the term and matching definition.

Read More

See more detail about how I teach academic vocabulary in this blog post.

Coordinating Resources

Use these cards together with my other Academic Vocabulary and Common Core resources to get the most from your ELA academic vocabulary instruction.

Academic Vocabulary Word Wall

Academic Vocabulary Graphic Organizers

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See More Resources Like This

See all my Academic Vocabulary resources from the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. B