Preparing for The Wordmaster Challenge

How Do You Prepare for The Wordmaster Challenge?
by Bridget Suvansri


Here are some suggestions for getting ready many of which we do in class together.
1.  Make a study tool!  Look up the various meanings, parts of speech, and word forms of each word.  Students like to make flash cards, word webs, or a digital compilation of what they find.  I tell them to make a study tool that works for them!
2.  Use the words in sentences.  Try to drop them in conversations, and try to notice them when you are listening, reading, etc.  
3.  Make note of the typical or usual references of the words and the things the words are usually associated with.
4. Connect the words to each other by finding relationships between the words (keeping the part of speech in mind).  Connect words that are synonyms, antonyms, related words, and any ways the words many be connected.  We make categories and give the various categories general titles to help with this step.  Each group adds their brainstorming charts to a class doc for everyone to study!  See this example.  
5.  Create your own analogies using the words in an effort to predict what might be on the test.  Directions here.

6.  Finally, we play games!  Lots of games like Wordo (Wordmaster Bingo), Password.  I’ve even made up my own game called “The Interrogator” which gets kids asking higher level questions about the words and using the words in context.  Have kids make their own games on Quizlet, Quizziz, and Kahoot!  Fun for the whole class!  
7. Be a Sentence Smith! You can also make sentences using pairs of words that show their relationship and have the students post their sentences on Schoology or Padlet for all to see!  Here are the directions I give.  
8.  Make word pairs that go with the 16 ways to create analogies.  Here’s the directions and an example of a google sheets template I have my students use.  (An extra challenge would be to make two word pairs for each way….essentially creating an analogy for each analogy relationship).

Best of Luck!

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