Category Dictionary
In this project for beginners or young learners, students keep a notebook of many of the vocab words they’ve learned, designated by category, and paged alphabetically.
Student Projects
Topic: Vocabulary
Its Own Opposite
Many words have multiple definitions, and a handful of words have two or more definitions that contrast with one another. These words are called contranyms (or Janus words). For this project, students will define, describe, and give examples of contranyms.
Myths Live On
English has many words with Greek roots, and some of those are based in Greek myths. In this WebQuest, students will learn about a character from Greek mythology, one of their key stories, and some of the vocabulary words that are named after that character.
Closed Captioning
Writing Subtitles or CCs for a short video can be a great way for students to pay more attention to sentence structure, including identifying phrases and clauses. It may also be good for vocab exposure.
Onomatowhat-just-happened?
Students receive three onomatopoeia sounds as prompts, then work backward to come up with a scenario that would explain how those sounds came about.
Scene and Herd
‘Herd’ and ‘flock’ are words for groups of animals, but some animals have a group term specific to their species. These venery terms typically have addition (more common) meanings, so for this project students will combine the two definitions into one scene.
Scout Patches
Students create fun, challenging, and silly patches or merit badges, inspired by the ones that Girl Scouts or Boy Scouts might earn through their accomplishments.
Fictionary
Students write their own mini-dictionary (or an excerpt of one) based on a fictional property they enjoy, providing definitions to made-up words.
Pun-chlines
Here’s a great way to practice idioms and other sayings by changing a detail or two to fit a new context. Students get to deliver jokes by substituting one of the words from that expression with another word similar in either sound or meaning.
Natural Disasters
This project is for practicing ACTIVE & PASSIVE ADJECTIVES. Students learn about and compare different natural disasters, including what causes them and the effect they have on the world. This project is mostly done as a giant class discussion.
Synonyms based on Emotion
In this project, we’ll look at synonyms for verbs that incorporate an emotion or attitude that the doer of the action (the subject) exhibits. Given a list of synonyms for an action, students must identify an emotion or attitude that is associated with each.
Crime & Justice
Re-enact a criminal case: craft the situation around a fictional robbery, conduct an investigation, and put on a mock trial. This project works best with multiple classes.
Story Cards
Design elements of stories on cards. You can use them as prompts later, but for now, your class can put the ideas on paper.
Customized Apples-to-Apples
Have your students compile all the nouns and adjectives they’ve learned over the past year, then put each on its own card. Play a customized Apples-to-Apples game tailored to your own class’s knowledge, skill level, culture, and interests.
New Inventions
Encourage your students to think of some inventions, giving them a project to pour their creativity into. Different tasks throughout the project focus on different aspects of English, so this project can be used as a practical example for introducing new topics, or it might be a good review.