12 Ways To Help Students Retain Science Vocabulary

I remember when I was in fourth grade, and I had Sister Elrita for a teacher. She tried so hard to help us remember our spelling words. We had a special notebook just for spelling tests, and we had weekly lists we needed to take home, but looking back, those lists were just pure memorization. I didn't always know what the words meant, and I wasn't ever even a good speller. I was one of those kids that could see that it looked wrong, but didn't always know how to fix it. I still am that way as an adult. Now, to add vocabulary to the mix, yikes. I would use strategies when I got older such as pneumonic devices, or acrostics to support my memorizing of what a particular word meant. Do you recall how you memorized all of those words and what they meant when you were younger?

Science vocabulary is hard for students to retain. Whether you use the Freyer model or Sitton spelling or a district spelling program, here are some helpful tips to bring your science vocabulary to a new level of retention. What is even harder is that teachers have such little time to teach science in our very busy days and now with social distancing how do you even try to have enough time and supplies for each student. As you find new ways to add science into your curriculum, we also have to remember to focus on hands on and creative ways for our students to know what they are doing and what vocabulary words go with each concept.

You can use vocabulary within the context of a lesson or through a creative activity, but having new ideas to help your students understand those tough tier three words will surely inspire both you and your students!

Here are my top 12 ways that I help my K-5th grade students to remember their science vocabulary words and retain their meaning week to week:

1. Songs/Chants: I love songs and chants to remember vocabulary words. From Water Cycle to states of matter, songs help students remember words through popular songs and chants. 

2. Write the room with qr codes: I have students go from poster to poster reading vocabulary or answering a vocabulary driven question. Now with social distancing I have a bell that allows students to know when to rotate. 

3. Cloze Reading: I might give students a short reading with vocabulary words to focus on that are bolded. When they are done I give them a few questions to answer that allows for them to reflect on the words they are learning.

4. Boom Cards: I absolutely love boom cards for testing for understanding after we focus on a science concept and experiment. I just used mixture or solution and states of matter this week!

5. Word drawings: I use this when we have words that are a bit harder such as the water cycle and identifying the differences or solubility/saturation/concentration/diluted. When the word becomes the concept it makes more sense!

6. Google Slide Vocabulary Review Games: Some of my classes are not set up for Boom Learning because...well I teach over 230 students. I shift those classes to my google slides activities! This allows for them to look at picture association and determine which word represents the vocabulary we are learning. 

Science School Yard Digital Resources

7. Science Experiments and See Saw Activities: I love when I can demonstrate the words and what they mean through an experiment or let students do the experiments independently right now. Once they are done, they work on a record sheet to use what they learned. They have to use the words correctly in sentences or phrases that show what they know and utilize their words in context.

8.  Vocabulary Board Games: I LOVED using these last year as a way to review our FOSS science units. Now that we are virtual and independent we have not been able to use the games this year. Instead, we now I have...who has which can be done at their desk. Kiddos at home review by some of the ideas above.

Science School Yard Science Games

9. Art projects: We utilize science based art projects at times to create a picture or diagram using our colored paper and a concept such as the water cycle or landforms. We then label the picture (or even diorama when we could work in groups) to show what each part of our picture represents.

10. Memory/Go Fish: Okay...another idea that is very hard independently, but Educandy offers a way to play memory, word search and more. Here is the video on how to do just that!

 11. Poetry: I use acrostic poems and haikus to have students remember important science words. We take a picture and add it to see saw for them to use as a study guide, then I gather the poems and create a bulletin board. Two for the price of one!

12. Placemats: I use digital placemats for students to use to fill in the definition, picture, antonyms, and synonyms of the vocabulary words that are the main focus of our lesson. I don't always use this one, because I am crunched for time and this one can take a bit longer for us to fill out. I am sharing my digital placemat for you to download here!   

I hope that these ideas will inspire you to add some science vocabulary activities into your science lessons! Let's make science child's play!

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FOSS and Science Stations

For the 28 years I have been teaching our district has used FOSS as our science program. I am using these kits as I teach my kindergarten through fifth grade students. We have build a pretty solid road map that helps us determine what lesson we are teaching per week to each class. As our district adopted the WI science standards which are almost identical to NGSS, we had to create our new road maps to make sure that each of the standards were covered. That meant that we had to look at consolidating lessons, working them into stations, as well as cutting the FOSS lessons that do not meet our new standards.

We wanted to also make sure that we were adding engineering as well as find ways to study vocabulary, assess our knowledge, and gather grades when we only see our kiddos once a week, for an hour! That means we have to be really creative with our time and we had to learn how to make every lesson and moment count! (Not to mention that we are also needing to help our school math goal in science...I will be sharing in my next post how I am attempting to do just that).

I want to share with you a few strategies that we came up with as we kept the FOSS kits, learned to consolidate and create stations, and found creative ways to work in assessment and vocabulary.

Learning To Consolidate:
As we looked at the time we have with each of our students, looked at the fact that we needed to find ways to show their progress, as well as assess them, we had to find a way to create lessons that were meaty and created a way for our students to retain information.

I focused this year on the 5E model of writing my science lessons!

Using my FOSS lessons, I find a way to engage in what we are going to learn that day. I give them part of the experiment as an introduction or way to explore what we are going to be learning or I give them a way to start to investigate the "experiment" that goes along with the FOSS kit. When students are done with their investigations, some tables are done earlier than others, one method to adding other layers to each lesson is to find ways to have students explain their thinking, use a record sheet to write down what they learned and any observations that they made.

Variables and Castle Storming Station

One way that I use FOSS as an extension is to have students finish an experiment and then take it up a notch. We learned about variables for an example then we made castles to show what we learned!

Elaboration can be done at their tables or even as stations around the room! I love when my learners can get up and move around, get up and be responsible for their ongoing learning, and continue to focus on not only explaining, but elaborating! This might mean a quick STEM challenge, an extension of the experiment, qr code vocabulary games, digital review lessons that I made for each FOSS unit, or a quick game such as task cards or review!

Human Body Leg and Kick Ball Station

If students can get done early, I also add ways for them to continue their learning through games as well! We have to create something at times that can be used to create a fun competition or interactive game to utilize what we are learning at the time! We had to make legs in fourth grade Human Body, why not use what we made to see how our leg muscles react when we kick!

One huge incentive to get done is the ability to elaborate! I also can take the opportunity to help the groups that might need my time, a reteach, or even a way to evaluate their learning!

Setting Up Stations!

Creating stations while using a science kit like FOSS can be a bit time consuming at first, however once you create stations, they can be used over and over again! Check out my FOSS extensions on TPT if you want to find resources to elaborate!

Station Ideas:
1. vocabulary review
2. experiment sheets
3. assessment
4. ticket out the door
5. digital recordings and picture explanations
6. STEM connections
7. extension sheets
8. math connections
9. Book creator or adobe spark
10. digital activities and review
11. task cards
12. reading connections
13. writing connections
14. maker space
15. meeting with small groups

Stations can be used after your initial introduction lesson. They can also be used to consolidate smaller activities and experiments as well. Finding ways to add stations can help you find ways to meet with groups to check for understanding as well as guide them if they are struggling.

Assessment and Vocabulary Review Stations

A great way to add a quick review is to use games that incorporate vocabulary and questions that we have been asked during an experiment or that they will see on an assessment.

I love using qr codes for a quick review and assessment. QR codes are great because they can check what they know after trying to answer the questions first. They can also have a partner and see who can answer the question first. You can have them answer the questions then use the qr code to review what they know.

I also think ticket out the door is important as a quick way to check for understanding. I use digital sheets that they can place in our Itslearning site (like Google Classroom) or they can air drop their screen shot of their sheet for me to see where they are at. I also check it at the door if we are needing a quick check and go! Here is the resource that I created and use with my 2nd-5th graders!

Use FOSS in your classroom? Please share any ideas and strategies that you use for extensions, elaborations, and evaluations. We can all use some great ideas!

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