Things That....

I have about 25% of my kids who are officially LEP students; I have several others who didn't qualify but do come from homes where another language is spoken by their family. So I've really tried to focus on getting vocabulary instruction in anywhere I can. I do a powerpoint every morning to warm-up for our reading instruction on my new toy-Smartboards came with the new school :). The last thing we do is I put up a category, have them turn to a partner and take turns naming as many things as they can that belong in that category. I always feel like I'm hosting $25,000 pyramid or Family Fued! Then I have the answers I thought of fly in and then they can share any others they come up with.

I love to stump them. We for example, we did "things with buttons"-they names all kinds of clothing but didn't think about remote controls or televisions. I try to make it go along with the story we are reading or our theme. We have been talking about winter a lot, so "things you can make with snow"-being Texans they had no idea for example, that you could make snow ice cream! Some examples for categories:

Things that don't exist
Things that you tie
Things you find in a grocery store
Things made from milk
Things you drink
Things that are round
Things you pet
Things that glow
Things you can do with your feet
Things you mix
Things in the sky
Things that smell bad/good
Things that taste sweet
Things that grow (they never think of people)
Things you bake
Things that are hot/cold/warm
Thing you get in the mail
Things you can do in the ocean
Things you build
Things you write
Things you can jump over
Things that can melt
Things that make you laugh/cry