Chapter 6 of Word Nerds is "Celebrate to Validate". As I left off on my last post on how I would bump up my vocabulary instruction in my classroom
here, I didn't mention what my plan was going to be on Day 5.
Little did I know that Chapter 6 was all about the last day. It is a day to "Celebrate to Validate". Chapter 6 gives you a plethora of ways to host a vocabulary party in your classroom to review those words studied for the week and recognize all of the students hard work.
My favorite party mentioned is "Celebrating Velcro Words." Velcro Words are words that will stick to your brain. According to the text, "The teacher calls on a student to share their favorite word and explain why they think it's a Velcro word. The teacher may then ask, When can you use the word _______? The student will then give their answer and the teacher will scan the room looking for approval or use the thumbs up/down signal. Finally the teacher will say, "(Student name) , we appreciate the word ______ and celebrate its use. Hear, hear!" The students will raise their cups and intone say, "Hear, hear! Then they each take a sip of juice. "(Chapter 6).
A game not mentioned in Chapter 6, but a game that has been a favorite of my class is
Kahoot.
Kahoot would make for a fantastic game to play on a Friday before their test.
Kahoot gets students engaged, using technology, and gets them collaborating and discussing those words one last time for the week. I would create the game as a cloze structure with students choosing the correct word to fill in sentences.
I would love to hear how you review before the test whether it's vocabulary or another subject?
On February 17, my students and I participated in Digital Learning Day. I first heard about this day which is celebrated around the country through Twitter. During my weekly participation in the Monday night #4thchat on Twitter, teachers were tweeting how they would take part in this day. There were so many awesome ideas shared which empowered me to become involved. About 15 minutes into the chat, I networked with 3 other teachers. We decided to have our students participate in a Kahoot game. @plnaugle hosted the game and set up a google hangout for us to view the game and each other's classes. We played against 3 other classes from Texas, Indiana, and Louisiana. It was exciting!! The first quiz was on identifying different types of Oreo cookies. @plnaugle's class won that game. Then we completed a quiz on logos. It was a win for us! Many of my students had not participated in a Kahoot game against another class let alone a Google hangout, so they were in awe of how cool it was to be live with other classes around the globe. It really was an awesome experience for everyone. Here are a few pics from our day. 
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