Academic Vocabulary Board Game for High School
A playable board-game packet for 9th graders that reinforces high-level academic vocabulary such as analyze, evaluate, synthesize, and interpret through roll-and-respond turns with Action Cards asking students to define, use in a sentence, or draw/act out each word. It is well suited to a 30-45 minute small-group session and is designed to be accessible for multilingual learners.
“help me develop MLL friendly games that we can play in class”
Teacher Guide & Tips
- Use this as a whole-class warm-up or end-of-unit review in a 30-45 minute block, grouping students in teams of three or four so they can support one another's pronunciation and meaning.
- Discussion prompts: "How is 'analyze' different from 'evaluate'?" and "Can you give an example of something you would synthesize from two sources?" Ask students to justify answers in English or their home language before sharing in English.
- Scaffold for multilingual learners and struggling readers by pre-teaching cognates, providing a word bank with translations and visual icons, and allowing a sentence frame such as "To ___ means to ___."
- Extension for advanced students: have them create their own Action Cards for additional academic words and write a one-paragraph explanation of how the words relate to one another.
- Plan roughly 10 minutes for setup and rules, 25-30 minutes of play, and 5 minutes for a closing reflection on which words were hardest to explain.
What is Diffit?
Teachers use Diffit to get quality materials for their unique classrooms. Adjust difficulty, add scaffolds, or change the topic to get started.
Try Diffit for free“help me develop MLL friendly games that we can play in class”
Teacher Guide & Tips
- Use this as a whole-class warm-up or end-of-unit review in a 30-45 minute block, grouping students in teams of three or four so they can support one another's pronunciation and meaning.
- Discussion prompts: "How is 'analyze' different from 'evaluate'?" and "Can you give an example of something you would synthesize from two sources?" Ask students to justify answers in English or their home language before sharing in English.
- Scaffold for multilingual learners and struggling readers by pre-teaching cognates, providing a word bank with translations and visual icons, and allowing a sentence frame such as "To ___ means to ___."
- Extension for advanced students: have them create their own Action Cards for additional academic words and write a one-paragraph explanation of how the words relate to one another.
- Plan roughly 10 minutes for setup and rules, 25-30 minutes of play, and 5 minutes for a closing reflection on which words were hardest to explain.
Academic Vocabulary Board Game for High School
A playable board-game packet for 9th graders that reinforces high-level academic vocabulary such as analyze, evaluate, synthesize, and interpret through roll-and-respond turns with Action Cards asking students to define, use in a sentence, or draw/act out each word. It is well suited to a 30-45 minute small-group session and is designed to be accessible for multilingual learners.
What is Diffit?
Teachers use Diffit to get quality materials for their unique classrooms. Adjust difficulty, add scaffolds, or change the topic to get started.
Try Diffit for free