Vocabulary Activities
Vocabulary activities are activities that involve the utilization of vocabulary. Vocabulary activities can come in several different forms. Word games, lessons, competitions, challenges, spelling bees, tests, matching words with pictures, freestyling just to name a few. Partaking in several different vocabulary activities is a good, interesting and fun way for people to invigorate their overall level of vocabulary. Below is a list of vocabulary activities and how they can be used.
Spelling Bees
One of the most competitive vocabulary activities are spelling bees. Spelling bees are competitions where participants are asked to spell english words. The winner of a spelling bee is determined by which contestant is the most consistent in spelling the english words they were asked to spell correctly. Spelling bee competitions are one of the most globally prominent vocabulary activities in the world. People from different parts of the world travel to compete in spelling bees. There are national spelling bee competitions that transpire annually and some are even broadcasted. There has been movies, TV shows and episodes of popular TV shows based on spelling bees.
Freestyling
An entertaining vocabulary orientated activity is freestyling. Freestyling is the ability to think of and verbally express lyrics(usually rhyming lyrics) at a perpetual and consistent rate without any premeditated preparation prior to the commencement of the freestyling. The absence of preparation for it is the very reason why freestyling if done properly, can come off as amazing and impressive. Freestyling can apply to poetry, singing or rapping. It is also one of the most used word activities for music artists or aspiring music artists.
Discover New Words With Complex Sentence Generator
Complex Sentence Generator can be used to learn new words. By entering a large number of common words, the generator can potentially produce rarely used synonoms for the original words that have been entered. Simply entering sentences and paragraphs is another way to learn new words.
Writing Based on Creative Writing Prompts
Creative writing prompts are brief messages composed with the intent of inciting or prompting writers who read the messages to write creatively in regards to what they read in the message. Reading creative writing prompts is a good way to stimulate creativity within the mind especially during a point in time where a writer is having a hard time being innovative.
Cryptograms
Cryptograms are word puzzles that consist of encrypted text/one or more words/phrases. The text of a cryptogram can be encrypted with letters, numbers or both. Those letters in each individual character placeholder can of course be any letter but the correct letters of the original word/phrase being encrypted. In order to decipher a cryptogram you must guess what the original correct word/phrase is by gradually guessing letters and eventually the entire word/phrase. To be on the right path of accomplishing that, you can use a hint that is usually provided and the fact that you can negate whatever letter you're focusing on for that particular character placeholder.
Scrabble
Word games like Scrabble, Boggle, Pictionary, Hangman and crossword puzzles are extremely popular vocabulary games. The main objective in Scrabble is to form legitimate words(words that can be found in standard dictionaries) out of random combinations of letters. Having a big vocabulary definitely increases the chances of being able to do that. Good spelling and anagramming also play significant roles in your chances of winning. Like spelling bees, Scrabble is extremely competitive. There are several clubs for Scrabble players to join and compete with each other, and many players compete in Scrabble tournaments that transpire globally.
Boggle
Boggle is a word game that consists of 16 lettered dice(dice that have a letter on each side instead of dots). The 16 dice are placed in a solid, plastic grid that has 16 slots for the dice to be placed in. The slots are manufactured in a way so that when the dice are placed in them, you can only see the top side of the dice therefore one letter per die. The grid with the dice is covered with a lid and then shaken so that the lettered dice are shuffled which results in random letters of the dice being seen. At this point, 2 or more players try to find words out of the 16 letters horizontally, vertically and/or diagonally. Boggle isn't as competitive as Scrabble but still has its fair share of clubs and tournaments and is a fun vocabulary activity to partake in.
Pictionary
Pictionary is word game involving pictures. 2 teams of 2 or more players must draw pictures and have the rest of their team guess what word that picture represents. The teams can't just always draw what they want. Pictionary also involves a board where each team has a piece representing them moving along the board. The board consists of squares that contain letters or shapes which represents the type of picture that is supposed to be drawn by the team who's piece lands on said squares. The main types of pictures that can be drawn are person/place/animal, object, action and difficult(words that are arduous to represent with pictures). Good drawing skills, a large vocabulary and a broad familiarization with images and what they represent all play significant roles in doing well in Pictionary.
iSketch
iSketch is a vocabulary activity that is very similar to Pictionary. It is almost like Pictionary but played online. Unlike Pictionary, there are no teams or board in iSketch. In a cyber room full of participants, each iSketch player must take turns drawing pictures with their mouse or a graphics tablet while all of the other players in the room must attempt to guess what word the picture represents.
Hangman
In Hangman, one person thinks of a word or phrase, gives a hint for what that word or phrase is, specifies the number of characters in the word or each word in the phrase by drawing blank lines under each potential letter, and has one or more people attempt to decipher what the word or phrase is by saying one letter per turn or guessing what the entire word or phrase is. If an incorrect letter is guessed, one component of the hangman diagram is drawn. If the whole hangman diagram ends up being drawn before the word or phrase is deciphered, the game is over.
Crossword Puzzles
With crossword puzzles, the main goal is to figure out what word should fill in blank squares(horizontal and vertical) based on clues and other words horizontally and vertically crossing into each other. Because crossword puzzles appear in newspapers, they are very popular and are done every day by many people.
Turn words into acronyms
Turning words into acronyms is fairly common among vocabulary building activities. The most conventional way of turning a word into an acronym is by writing the word vertically and with big letters, then taking each letter of the word and thinking of a word that represents that letter. Each letter in the original word that is being turned into an acronym is used as the first letter of the word that represents them. The newly composed acronym along with the words representing each letter in the acronym should always have a substantial degree of relevance to the meaning of the original word that has been transformed into an acronym.
Create Word Walls
A word wall is a group of vocabulary words that are posted on a wall together. There can be many different types of word walls. E.g. a word wall with a header/main word along with several synonyms for that word, a word wall with a word and a vocabulary list for that word, a word wall with rhyming words, a word wall with words and pictures representing those words etc... The possibilities for being innovative with word walls is practically infinite. Creating and implementing word walls is a good vocabulary activity because they are easily discernible to the public eye. Word walls are especially good for classrooms so students can use them as references as they read, write or carry out other word activities.
Brainstorm
Brainstorming is the act of thinking of words or concepts in relation to another main word/concept in order to accomplish a goal. Brainstorming is some what similiar to creating a vocabulary list except brainstorming more serves the purpose of stimulating ideas that play a part in accomplishing a goal rather than just simply list related words. A common way to brainstorm is by writing words and drawing bubbles around them, and drawing lines connecting word bubbles that pertain to one another. Brainstorming is a conventional technique that is often used for school projects and sometimes assignments. Brainstorming can potentially be very effective for the initialization phase of attempting to complete a project.
Word Association
Word Association is a very intriguing vocabulary activity. In word association, one player says one word, then the next player says a word that is related to or can be associated with the previous word that was said. Word association is one of the most unpredictable and arbitrary vocabulary building activities because sometimes there is no telling what participants will say. A lot of times, people will say the first word that comes to their mind instead of consciously thinking of a word to say then saying it. This is a fun and interesting way to play word association because it is as if people are sharing a part of what goes on in their subconscious mind which can easily cause wonder, awe and curiousity towards why a word was said in relation to another word.
Word Disassociation
Word Disassociation is just like Word Association, except the word that is said after a previous word that is said must be as unrelated to the previous word as possible.
Multiple Choice
There are several ways to create vocabulary practice activities or challenges that involve selecting from multiple words to match something. Answering questions, fill in the blank sentences, matching a word to a picture or matching a word to a definition are of the most common. In word activities that involve multiple choice, 3 or 4 words to choose from are conventionally given, but sometimes more or even less. Multiple choice is one of the several vocabulary practice activities that are usually used in tests.
Tests & Quizzes
Vocabulary orientated tests & quizzes can be comprised of one or more vocabulary activities. E.g. a spelling test would usually only require you to identify and spell words correctly while an english test can require correct spelling, proper grammar, accurate multiple choices and/or various vocabulary activities etc... They can all make up one test or quiz. That depends on the imagination of the person composing the test/quiz, what they want the participants of the test/quiz to gain from taking the test/quiz and how challenging they want the test/quiz to be.
Lessons & assignments
Vocabulary lessons/assignments are vocabulary practice activities that are designed for students or whoever is partaking in the lesson/assignment to learn specific aspects of vocabulary. E.g. there can be vocabulary lesson/assignments focusing on the meaning of prefixes, how they can be used, which words they can be used with and how the meanings of those words alter with the prefix. There can be vocabulary lessons/assignments that focus on the correct spelling of a particular group of words and lessons/assignments that involve becoming familiar with a specific vocabulary list. Vocabulary lessons/assignments can consist of one or more vocabulary building activities and those vocabulary activities usually share a similar goal which is focusing on the one particular aspect of vocabulary that the overall lesson/assignment is focusing on.Word Search Puzzles
Word search puzzles are grids of various sizes filled with random letters. Within the random letters, there are hidden words that can be found horizontally, vertically and diagonally. The objective is to find all of these words with clues/hints provided, and circle or highlight them.
Paraphrase Search
Use paraphrase search to search for potential examples of words/phrases being used in a sentence and paraphrased in a sentence.
Vocabulary Workshop
Vocabulary workshops consist of a multitude of word activities and challenges with different levels of difficulty. You can encounter some of the word activities already mentioned and explained previously in a vocabulary workshop and possibly more. Vocabulary workshops usually give you a score to convey how well you do when participating in and completing the various vocabulary activities in the workshop. Vocabulary workshops are definitely good for those who like aiming for perfection and alternating between many different vocabulary activities.
The level of someone's vocabulary indisputably plays a very significant role in how well they can perform in all of the above vocabulary activities. The higher their level of vocabulary is, the higher their chances of winning or succeeding are. Losing a challenge or failing to complete any of the vocabulary activities people partake in, can still be a good thing and serve as a learning experience. E.g. with competitive vocabulary activities, you can learn from the other players who are winning, so win or lose/succeed or fail, partaking in vocabulary activities can always have a positive effect on your vocabulary.