You know how you sometimes stumble upon AMAZING Youtube videos and you just wish that somehow, someway they were applicable to your classroom? 

Well, vocabulary video journals are the perfect way to work them in. Each week, once your students have their vocabulary list, turn their attention to whatever video you’ve discovered that you think will be riveting for them (the videos posted here are three of my all-time favorites).

Will their writing be a little crazy? Perhaps not totally connected? At times, yes. But I have found that the videos are so engaging to them that they bring that positive energy into their vocabulary writing.

After ten minutes they’ve at least considered and thought through the meaning of their words as they try to build them into their writing. Then have them trade notebooks and give each other a bit of feedback on whether they used the words correctly. There’s no need to collect or grade this writing, it’s just a fun way to start memorizing the words and their meanings.

I wrote up a formal set of lesson plans for this activity for Read Write Think, if you’d like some printable materials and more video links.