Using Vocabulary Journals in the Classroom

Vocabulary journals are not a well-known tool but are very beneficial when teaching vocabulary. The purpose of vocabulary journals is to have a place for students to keep the words they are learning. It is also a place for them to look back and reference past vocabulary words. My students love to look through their journals to see the words we have learned.

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Vocabulary Journals

Vocabulary journals don’t have to be anything fancy. They could be paper stapled together to make a book. I use composition books. They are inexpensive, especially if you stock up with them at the beginning of the year. My stepdad cuts them in half for me with his tools, so I get two books for the price of one!

Robust words notebook for vocabulary

I glue a cute cover on the front and they are ready for my students to start collecting words. Since I teach the littles, I only teach a couple of vocabulary words a week. I choose one of our words we are learning to be a focus word. The focus word gets put into our robust word journal.

open notebook

We fill out a word page for our focus word together. As a class, we brainstorm synonyms and antonyms. Last we share ideas of how to represent the word in a drawing. This is their favorite part!

open notebook

As the year progresses, we sometimes add a second word each week. You can read about how I plan vocabulary words here. We refer back to them often as we play vocabulary games.

My students feel so proud of their new knowledge of robust, college words!

You can download these vocabulary journal pages here.


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