How to Teach Great November Content Vocabulary

Not Enough Time to Teach Content Area Vocabulary

I am a first grade teacher who did not have enough time to teach content vocabulary. I was busy teaching my students how to read, do math, learn science and social studies and, oh yeah, be a good citizen and follow the rules. I was discovering more and more that I needed to find time to teach vocabulary, especially for my ESL students, so I began to create a daily routine where I would teach content vocabulary in a timely manner. Wow! What a difference it made!

Vocabulary Calendar

I start my circle time with introducing a November content vocabulary word from our calendar. I go over the definition of the word and encourage my students to find features of the words. For instance, one of the words was veteran and one of my girls pointed out that the word family -an was in the word veteran. We also clap the syllables in the word and then discussed the pattern that the calendar is building, such as the example below where you see a triangle then a square, so we will talk about that being an AB pattern. Get it here.

Vocabulary Center

My students go to a vocabulary center where they will cut out a calendar piece with the word on it and glue it to their own calendars. Then they will color the piece to go with the pattern. Next, they draw a picture or write about the word in their unit journals, or on a journal page that we have included in our November Calendar Pack. Last, they circle the November words. This is a sample of a writing that was done at the end of our Election unit.  As you can see, these content words really help the students to stay on topic when they write.

Vocabulary Folder

November Emergent Readers

I like to use these November emergent readers in my guided reading groups so I can see if my students are writing down the feature of the word that we discussed. We worked on the gr blend in Pilgrims. This little guy was suppose to just circle gr, however, he informed me that grim was a word, WOW! The children then write other words in the box that has the feature we discussed. On another day, we will do the questions and I encourage them to find the answers in the book so they can practice text to text. You can get these books here at our store for a discounted price.

November Content Vocabulary and Sight Words

Student Connections to Vocabulary

This word was from our September Calendar.

October Calendar

These words were from our September Calendar and I just love that the kiddos are still remembering them!

I am pretty excited to see my students actively looking for their content words throughout their school day! I know they are really starting to understand these words as we continue to review them throughout the week. They see how the words for the week relate to each other. They are learning great November content vocabulary.

Boom Cards

Another way I found to reinforce these content words was using Boom Cards. They are self-checking and the kids love them!

Check out a few cards for FREE!

Our Solutions for Content Vocabulary

I was really struggling trying to find time to teach content vocabulary to my students, but over the years we have continued to add these thematic vocabulary resources  that have helped to incorporate the much needed vocabulary in a genuine way. My students are enjoying learning these words with these active learning resources.

You can get them all, plus so much more in this discounted Mega November Bundle.

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That’s all for now!

Pam