Making vocabulary practice interesting for students is not always easy, especially older students. While my adult students understand the value of repetitive vocabulary study, and thus are willing to participate, my middle schoolers were not always so accommodating. I did eventually find some culmination activities that were almost always a hit, such as Appetizing Adjectives for food vocabulary and Outfit on a Budget for clothing.
Vocabulary Practice Activities
We start out with many of the same vocabulary activities as our other studies: sorts, clip cards, spinner games, match up boards, etc. While I’m always trying to keep students engaged, I do find that using a standard set of activities helps them to concentrate on the vocabulary words and not the activity directions. That said, clothing vocabulary was one of the first sets to have a Guess the Word PowerPoint Game made to go with it, and my students love this game! You can see the community places version of the game in action in this YouTube video, and you can get your own template and step-by-step directions for creating the games in this post. It’s after these standard activities, when we get to the culmination activity, that the real fun begins though.
Outfit on a Budget Challenge
As a wrap up to our unit, I give students a challenge. Since I already have several good descriptive writing activities (including Describe That Picture and Descriptive Writing With Mr. Potato Head), I usually make the final product of this project a speaking presentation. When I have time, I prefer to do this project in two parts, but sometimes I have to skip straight to the second half in order to fit everything into a limited semester.
Part One
Students are told they are now all fashion consultants and it is their job to put together the perfect outfit for a given occasion. Students are placed into pairs and told to decide if they will be dressing a man or a woman. They then randomly draw an occasion card from my stack (part of the free download at the bottom of this post). Occasions run from very casual things such as staying home on a Saturday to highly formal events such as attending a wedding. Pairs are then given time to shop for the perfect outfit. Their outfit must include all outer clothing (no underwear), shoes, and accessories. No budget is given for this first part, but I do limit them to one or two websites to do their shopping (usually Amazon or Walmart).
As students are working, they take screen shots of the various pieces of their outfit and keep a running total of the cost. All of this is combined in a class Google Slides presentation. All pairs are allotted a single slide which must contain the occasion, images of the outfit components, and a grand total. Students then take turns presenting their chosen outfit to the class. They need to describe the outfit and explain why it is the perfect choice for the event which their fictional client will be attending. Limiting students to one slide, and requiring them to primarily fill it with pictures, helps break students of the habit of writing their speech out on the slide. Students begin to understand that presentation slides are there to support their speaking, not duplicate or replace it.
Part Two
For part two, students keep the same partner and occasion, but this time must draw a card from the budget pile (also included in the download below). Students once again design the perfect outfit, including all clothing except underwear, as well as all accessories and shoes, but this time they must do it within a certain budget. Since the budget cards range from $35-195, I will sometimes have two piles (casual vs. formal events).
The working and presentation aspects of the project remain the same, but students must include their assigned budget in the presentation, as well as the final total. Sometimes, depending on the age and math abilities of my students, I will even require them to figure and include sales tax in their final costs. This is an excellent culture lesson as many countries do not have sales tax or include it in the price you see advertised (and their math teachers love the extra practice with percentages it gives students).
Conclusion
This final project is a lot of fun and provides the students with practice in several different vocabulary areas: clothing, colors, numbers, money… It also requires some good descriptive speaking skills, something my students generally need to work on. When I don’t have access to technology available, I give students catalogs (yes, they’re still out there, you just have to request them) and a graphic organizer to help them prepare for their presentation. For the presentation itself, I either allow them to either skip the visuals completely or make a poster to share (often a small one we place on the document camera). The final outfits are always a lot of fun to see, especially the differences between the budgeted and unbudgeted versions! If you’re looking for a fun way to practice vocabulary and speaking skills, I highly recommend giving this activity a try. Happy teaching, everyone!
As promised, here is the download for the activity cards and graphic organizer, as well as links to the other vocabulary activities.
The Gaming Grammarian 