I love looking at paint chip strips; each color’s name is so evocative of lovely ideas, foods and places that I always find myself wanting to decorate a space with my favorite paint color –regardless how it might actually look in my dwelling.
A colleague gave me an idea for building vocabulary skills by having students make vocabulary paint chips –essentially, write a word and its synonyms in each of the strips that go from light to dark.
I have taken this idea and adapted it to be much more helpful to students. With my vocabulary paint chips handout, students have more room to review definitions and contextual sentences than on an actual paint strip, plus they are not struggling with the text of the paint chips themselves.
Essentially, when students receive a my vocabulary paint chips handout, they pick four vocabulary words they struggle with and write each on the darkest square of the four paint strip sets. Next, they have to find synonyms and/or antonyms that match each of the difficult words to write on the lighter shades of the same color.
The next part is what really makes the vocabulary paint chips activity awesome. Students have room to the right of each paint strip color to fill in both the definition of the word and a sentence using that word in context.
When students are writing or reviewing, they can use the vocabulary paint chips handout to see their difficult words, definitions, and model sentences all on one sheet!
Hopefully you and your students will enjoy this new way to “paint” words!