This cluster includes the following access points.
Vetted resources educators can use to teach the concepts and skills in this topic.
| Name |
Description |
| Colors All Around Us: Using Colors to Describe Our World: | In this lesson, students will use the beautiful text Green by Laura Vaccaro Seeger to explore how an author uses color words and illustrations to describe various real-world objects. They will identify and explain how the descriptive words provide meaning and how the illustrations support the text. Students will brainstorm real-life objects that can be described and classified using color words and write an expository piece to describe those objects. |
| Supermarket Sorting: | In this lesson, in a hands-on activity, students will practice sorting food items from the grocery store into different categories. The teacher will read aloud Eating the Alphabet by Lois Ehlert and send students on a scavenger hunt to find and record pictures of fruits and vegetables that are hung around the room. Students will be asked to provide an opinion of what they think is the best fruit or vegetable during a writing assignment and explain why they like it. Then each student will draw a picture of that food on a paper plate to display with their writing. |
| Beach Sort: | In this lesson, students will have hands-on experience with categorization skills, by sorting objects commonly taken on a beach trip. Students will practice describing objects, sorting objects into categories, and verbalizing category concepts. Students will also practice discussing opinions about objects by writing a Beach Sorting Book. |
| Colorful Rhymes: | The students will participate in reading the rhyming story The Crayon Box That Talked and help to generate words that rhyme with colors. Then, students will be able to demonstrate their understanding of rhyming words by completing a sorting activity. |
| Generating Grammar Gurus: | In this lesson students will participate in reading the books, A Mink, a Fink, A Skating Rink, To Root, to Toot, to Parachute, and Hairy, Scary, Ordinary and complete a variety of related activities that allow them to learn about and practice their knowledge of nouns, verbs, and adjectives. Students will contribute to a class generated grammar chart and complete a grammar sort. Students will also publish their own sentence which will include a noun, verb, and adjective, as well as an illustration to provide detail. |
| Fairy Tale Maps: | Students will begin to understand the concept of maps by describing the path that Little Red Riding Hood took on the way to Grandma's house. |
| Classify and Categorize: Adding to Sorted Groups: | This is the first lesson in a kindergarten unit on classification and categorization. The lesson uses the informational text My Big Animal Book by Roger Priddy. In the guided practice activity, students will look at pictures in the book and pay attention to which animals fit into certain groups. In the independent practice activity, students will draw and label four pictures of animals from the book that would fit into the category, "Animals with Four Legs." |
| Classify and Categorize: Creating Groups and Sorting: | This lesson is the third lesson in a kindergarten unit on classifying and categorizing. The teacher modeling section utilizes the informational text My Big Truck Book by Roger Priddy. In the independent practice activity, students will cut out pictures of trucks and sort them into categories of their choice. |
| Classify and Categorize: Sorting into Predetermined Groups: | This is the second lesson in a kindergarten unit on classification and categorization. The lesson uses the informational text My Big World Book by Roger Priddy. Students will practice sorting pictures from the book into categories. An independent practice activity is included with an accompanying worksheet. |
| Getting Wise About Size!: | In this lesson, students will learn common antonyms and will participate in an antonym matching game. They will also learn to sort objects based on a common pair of antonyms, "big" and "small". They will use their understanding of the words "big" and "small" to describe objects, both orally and in writing. |
| Let's Get Moving!: | Students will move like their favorite animal and identify what the movement is called reviewing verbs. Then they will create a chart about ways that animals move and interact with a read aloud as they search for more movement ideas. Students will end the lesson by completing an opinion sentence about their favorite animal movement and why it is their favorite. |
| Name |
Description |
| Vocabulary: Affix Match: | In this activity, students will match affixes to their meanings by playing a memory game. |
| Vocabulary: Opposites Attract: | In this activity, students will identify antonyms by playing a card game. |
| Vocabulary: Synonym Dominoes: | In this activity, students will identify synonyms by playing a domino game. |
| Vocabulary: Another Word: | In this activity, students will exchange antonyms for the underlined word in sentences. |
| Vocabulary: Semantic Feature Analysis: | In this activity, students will identify the features that distinguish one word from another by completing a semantic feature analysis grid. |
| Vocabulary: Word Connections: | In this activity, students will identify connections between words and record their shared attribute/category. |
| Vocabulary: Semantic Map: | In this activity, students will brainstorm words related to a topic and use books and/or reference materials to answer questions about unknown words on a semantic map. |
| Vocabulary: Four Square Vocabulary Map: | In this activity, students will describe a vocabulary word using a four square map. |
| Vocabulary: Multiple Meaning Bugs: | In this activity, students will identify the multiple meanings of words. |
| Vocabulary: Action Word Ring Sort: | In this activity, students will sort verbs related to a picture. |
| Vocabulary: Choose and Chat: | In this activity, students will use adjectives to describe and identify objects. |
| Vocabulary: Synonym Spider: | In this activity, students will match synonyms. |
| Vocabulary: Memory Word Match: | In this activity, students will match words to corresponding meanings (symbols, contractions, abbreviations) while playing a memory game. As an extension, students can sort matched words into categories. |
| Vocabulary: Affix Action: | In this activity, students will produce words with affixes to complete sentences while playing a board game. |
| Vocabulary: Alike and Different: | In this activity, students will compare and contrast the attributes of words using a Venn diagram. |
| Vocabulary: Categor-Ring: | In this activity, students will identify and sort words by categories. |
| Vocabulary: Category Creations: | In this activity, students will produce categories and corresponding words. As an adaptation to this activity, the students may sort teacher-selected words into categories and produce a category heading based on shared attributes OR produce words that belong in teacher-selected categories (based on units of study). |
| Vocabulary: Category Cube: | In this activity, students will produce and categorize words by rolling a category cube and writing corresponding words. |
| Vocabulary: Category Sort: | In this activity, students will brainstorm categories and corresponding words. As an adaptation to this activity, students can sort teacher-selected words and identify the category title based on shared attributes. |
| Vocabulary: Category Tag: | In this activity, students will state words that correspond to specific categories by playing a board game. NOTE: A blank game board is provided to allow teachers to create categories relevant to classroom instruction. As an extension, students may choose the word that does not belong in a set of words and name the category for the remaining words. |
| Vocabulary: Compare Extraordinaire: | In this activity, students will identify similarities and differences between the meanings of words using a Venn diagram. |
| Vocabulary: Concept Connection: | In this activity, students will compare four words, determine the one that does not belong in the set, and produce a category title for the remaining words based on shared attributes. |
| Vocabulary: Cube Word Sort: | In this activity, students will sort words by categories. |
| Vocabulary: Extreme Words: | In this activity, students will identify the relationship among words by placing them on a continuum. |
| Vocabulary: Inside Information: | In this activity, students will write simple definitions, sentences, and examples of target words in a graphic organizer. |
| Vocabulary: Meaning Map: | In this activity, students will identify attributes of words and record them on a graphic organizer. |
| Vocabulary: Same and Different: | In this activity, students will compare and contrast words using a Venn diagram. |
| Vocabulary: Transportation Key Sort: | In this activity, students will sort transportation words into categories (air, land, water). |
| Vocabulary: Word Wake-Up: | In this activity, students will identify more precise alternatives (synonyms) for overused words. |
| Vocabulary: Word Web: | In this activity, students will identify the multiple meaning of words by constructing a web. |
| Vocabulary: Word Wise: | In this activity, student will determine the meaning of words. NOTE: To fully meet the expectations of the aligned standards, students will need to identify unknown words in text they are reading and use strategies to determine the meanings of the unknown words. |
| Vocabulary: Word Wizard: | In this activity, students will determine the meaning of words of interest in text. |
| Vocabulary: Word Wrap: | In this activity, students will describe a target word using a graphic organizer. |
| Vocabulary: Word-O-Nary: | In this activity, students will write simple definitions, sentences, and synonyms of targeted words found in content-area text. |
Vetted resources students can use to learn the concepts and skills in this topic.
