1. Vocabulary Cartoons

2. What is a MNEMONIC? A memory aid
In vocabulary cartoons, you will create a rhyming mnemonic and a visual mnemonic to help you learn a new vocabulary word

3. Rhyming Mnemonics
A form of word association where you rhyme a word you want to learn with a word you already know.
EX: Columbus sailed the ocean BLUE in fourteen hundred ninety-TWO
(This teaches the students the date that Christopher Columbus discovered America)

4. Visual Mnemonics
For most people, it’s easier to remember pictures that are seen rather than sounds that are heard
EX: when you know what a banana looks like and you hear the word, your mind automatically makes a mental picture of a banana

5. Making a picture with a new vocabulary word and a “sounds like” word
Vocabulary word: PARRY
Since you do not know what this word means, you try to come up with a rhyming (or “sounds like”) mnemonic that helps you
then create a visual image of the “sounds like”
PARRY:
Sounds like: PEAR (now you can visualize the fruit)

6. Define the vocabulary word
Next you need to find the definition of the vocabulary word
You may need to determine its ROOT WORD first, in order to look it up

7. Create your sentence
Now you have the new vocabulary word, its definition, and your “sounds like” word
You are ready to create a visual mnemonic by creating a sentence that includes both your vocabulary word and the “sounds like” word
This sentence should be something you can illustrate

8. VOCABULARY WORD: PARRY- to protect yourself from a blow; to avoid skillfully; to turn aside and evade
SOUNDS LIKE: PEAR
SENTENCE: The PEARS PARRIED each other’s fencing movements.

12. DIRECTIONS Randomly select a vocabulary word from the basket
Write the word and page number down on your unlined white paper (then return the word to the basket for the next class to use)
Find the sentence in the story where your word is and copy it down
Create a vocabulary cartoon with your word: vocabulary word, definition (DO NOT use a form of the word in the definition you write), “sounds like” word, sentence, and cartoon
You may use the electronic dictionaries (please power them OFF when you put them away and treat them with respect)
Color your cartoon
Don’t forget to write your name and class on your paper
Place your completed cartoon in your portfolio until I return. We will place them around the classroom for others to view once I return.
Read silently (your biography, preferably) if you have any remaining time (don’t forget to document the reading on your reading log)