Five 5th Grade Vocabulary Activities Your Class Will Enjoy

Are you looking for fun, engaging ways to teach vocabulary? This blog post is all about 5th grade vocabulary activities you can use in your classroom!

Vocabulary is a word every teacher dreads. There are endless possibilities as to why. One option is that printing out vocabulary worksheets, study guides and giving vocabulary tests every week can feel absolutely painful. Why? Because 3 weeks later, students don’t remember what the vocab words mean when they see it in a book or reading, and teachers want to pull their hair out!

So as I was sitting at my desk one summer looking at which 5th grade vocabulary worksheets from my vocabulary curriculum I wanted to copy first, I just had enough and decided to create 5th grade vocabulary activities that were engaging, fun, and actually helped students learn the meaning of the vocabulary words! 

5th Grade Vocabulary Activities (That Are Actually Engaging)

Teaching upper elementary students can be a challenge. They often do not find anything (no matter how impressive) “cool.” So vocabulary practice and learning new vocabulary words is no laughing matter. Here are some classroom vocabulary activities that are fun ways to study vocabulary and easy to implement into your language arts curriculum. 

Personal Word Wall

Okay, so this one is not the most fun out of all the 5th grade vocabulary activities I will share. But it is the perfect introduction activity for each vocabulary word. It is a valuable and necessary tool to help students remember the vocabulary list and the accompanying definitions they’re learning.

Students take each word they’re studying and write it on their personal word wall. They then have to write the definition, part of speech, and a sentence, and these help them see the word in different contexts. I have also seen teachers have students write down the root word or a suffix/prefix they recognize. 

Students can then reflect and look back on each word to remember the meaning, and many times my students have used it to help add to their writing pieces.

Unknown Vocabulary Word Search

This activity is definitely a little more “fun” for students. They must use their detective skills to figure out the unknown vocabulary word. Each student picks a word from the vocabulary word list and uses clues, sentences, part of speech, and more to help their classmates figure out which word they chose. 

This activity also helps students work on the complex skill of using context clues to determine a word or the meaning, looking at the sentences, root words, etc. It’s a great interactive way for students to learn and remember word meanings of unfamiliar words in a fun way.

---

---

Vocabulary Choice Board

In fifth grade, we often try to foster true independence in students. Using a choice board helps students feel like they can independently pick which vocabulary task they would like to do, and most of them are totally fun! 

It is a great way to help students who struggle with new words, and they can choose the learning style they know helps them best! Some activities I use on my vocabulary choice boards are writing a song describing and explaining a vocabulary word and creating a PowerPoint that describes and explains a vocabulary word. 

Using choice boards allows you to have daily 5th grade vocabulary activities because students can pick one each day! They are great for reading rotations, independent work, or for morning work. 

Roll a Vocabulary Word

This one falls into the category of easy vocabulary games for 5th grade, just like the Spin It game! The student must roll the die (you can use a digital one, too), and whichever number the dice lands on is the activity they must complete. This is a fun game kids can play individually or in small groups!

This activity is a great solution for students to practice their new vocabulary words after you’ve done direct vocabulary instruction. Word play is a fantastic way to make sure you have effective vocabulary teaching strategies in place for your kids.

It includes activities to teach vocabulary to elementary students and fun ways to introduce vocabulary. 

The 5th Grade Vocabulary Activities Include:

• 140 vocabulary words with definitions and parts of speech (2 versions)
•  Student Dictionaries (2 versions)
•  Vocabulary Word Hunt Posters
•  Word Wall Vocabulary Cards
•  Part of Speech Word Sort Cards
•  Vocabulary Word/Definition Matching Game
•  “Don’t Say That Word!” Game
•  Roll the Dice Printable
•  Spin It! Activity
•  Tic-Tac-Toe Board of Activities
•  “The Case of the Missing Word” Trifold Activity

5th Grade Vocabulary Activities

Yes, vocabulary is not any kids’ favorite activity. It is ok for students to feel this way, but if you look for engaging and fun ways to study vocabulary words, they will come around! Using visual supports and interactive activities with your students will make the process of learning new vocabulary so much easier. 

I know you’ll be just as impressed as I am with student success when it comes to your students’ vocabulary acquisition. Vocabulary time will become the best part of the week with these critical thinking activities.

Looking for other vocabulary blog posts? Check this one out!

How To Teach Math Vocabulary Terms All Year Long

Want to save this post for later? Click the picture below to pin the image to your favorite Pinterest board!