Science Vocabulary

Do you include vocabulary study and review in your science curriculum?

In the elementary grades my daughter was a very reluctant writer, but was great with science and other language arts.  Because she didn’t like to write it was very difficult to get her to take notes or to do repetitive writing work like writing spelling words, or writing vocabulary word definitions.  She also hated (and still does hate) what she terms mindless repetition. 

There are two subjects that really benefit from repetition however, math and vocabulary/spelling words.  Not surprisingly, these are my daughter’s least favorite subjects. It has always been a challenge to get her to review anything. 

One of the ways we get around her aversion to repetition, and still get the necessary review time is to let her play online games.  Isn’t it more fun to study vocabulary using word games such as hangman and find a word puzzles than to write the word five times? 

We found a site that allowed us to make our own puzzles with word lists of our choosing.  This means that we can build the games from social studies word lists, science word lists, and even math words. 

Anytime I can use technology like online games to help me and my daughter have a more agreeable and educational day, you can bet I will take advantage of it!