Content Vocabulary

While I have not yet witnessed Science being taught in my internship classroom, I have seen quite a bit of ELA and Math being taught. For this post I would like to use the way that I have seen Math Vocabulary taught in my 1st grade Internship Classroom. When the class switches to Math, the teacher hands out their "Math Journal". The teacher starts with one word at a time. the first word that the students needed to learn was "equation". The paper is folded long ways down the middle and on one side the student wrote the vocabulary word and the definition in 'kid friendly' language.

The example will be pictured below.

The student then got to pick a way to explain that vocabulary word in picture form. Each vocabulary word had to have at least 2 pictures for each word. The teacher intentionally uses the vocabulary words regularly.

In ELA the students have a "word wall", each week the teacher gives them 10 new words, and gives them a piece of notebook paper which she has already folded to give 6 blocks on each side. In the top left block the students write their name and in the top right the student writes out the entire date for example : September 16, 2016.

Then with the remaining 10 blocks the student writes each of the 10 words (one in each box) and has to draw and color a picture that matches that word. Like the example below except they have to color it.

I like both strategies for vocabulary and the students seem to like it as well, but the only thing I wish was that once the students completed this activity they had a place to keep it and come back to it later. The teacher has the students turn in the paper and then she puts them up in her folder of the students work. I feel like if the students did this type of vocabulary in there ELA notebook they could go back to those words later if they need them to use in writing. The "word wall" is a good idea to except for the fact that the wall just includes the words. I think a better way to incorporate the word wall would be to include pictures representing the word or using it correctly in a sentence with words such as "am". If the students do the work and turn it in, then they don't have the chance to use the words the way that need to. I feel like they should have access to those words, especially in writing. Instead of doing the paper with the 10 words, maybe using the idea of "vocabulary rings". If the students use a notecard or index card they could put 2 words and pictures on the card (one on front and one on back), then the cards could be hole punched and placed on a ring for the students to pull out and come back to later on if they need help with a  word. I think the teacher just needs to pay more attention to 'if the vocabulary is sticking with the students' because drawing and writing out the word once probably isn't going to be helpful in them remembering how to spell, use and understand a word.