NEW Community Packet + Vocabulary Party!

Thanksgiving break brought TONS of food, football, aaaand extra time to work on my second graders' next independent work packet for their new social studies unit on government! I stopped watching the Michigan-Ohio State game around the 3rd quarter, so that gave me plenty of time with my laptop to crank out a new packet. Pick it up here!

I also wanted to share my early finisher activity for social studies. Even though they have that fabulous packet to work on, I've always got my speedy workers who are done while I'm still working with the other group. 

Each kid has their own set of vocabulary word cards that we cut out from our MC3 workbooks. Each card has a word, picture, definition and example, and they have about 20 cards per unit. It takes some serious cutting to get them all ready, which I tend to use as an early finisher activity after their unit tests. These cards are the foundation of our early finisher games and activities!

At the beginning of the year, I gave them all this sheet of options for word card activities. Here are some of their favorites:

-I Have Who Has: This takes an eensy bit of prep initially, but they LOVE playing I have Who Has in small groups- and I LOVE that it gets them to review cards from old units! We have one set for each unit, which I make up and laminate (and that you can grab HERE), and they are allowed to pick any of the sets. I let the 3rd graders pick from either the 2nd or 3rd grade cards, to make sure we're reviewing all the material!

-Charades: It is SUPER goofy to watch them play Charades with social studies terms. I have them randomly draw a card and act it out, which can make for some pretty tricky ones! Watching a second grader trying to act out "modifying to the environment" is pretty interesting to say the least... But sometimes they can come up with some great stuff! I love the government cards - They get so creative.

-Headbandz: Yes, this is a total ripoff of Ellen Degeneres' game... But they LOVE it! One student chooses a random card and holds it against their forehead so they can't see it but everyone else can, a la Indian poker. My only complaint with this game is that they tend to get a teeny bit rowdy and excited... But I think it is a great way to review the meaning behind the word!

-Hangman: This game is more to build familiarity with the words than anything else. They enjoy it, but I'm not so sure how much it really builds foundation for the definition. :)

-Tabboo: In this game, one person pulls a card and tries to get their teammates to guess it by describing the word (yep, just like the game). They compete to be the team who can guess the most cards!

I think vocabulary words are suuuper important, and with this new emphasis on vocab this year I've seen a huge jump in their social studies scores! WOOHOO!