The Word of the Day: How We Learn Big Concepts in 15 Minutes a Day

Each day after math lessons, we gather around the table to read a poem, recite our memory work, track the calendar, read aloud, draw and study our Word of the Day. That is, we unpack some big idea in one word each day.

I write the day’s Word on the board for the kids to sound out, be it femur or Andromeda or Lake Erie or black walnut, then we read about it together, look at pictures and discuss. The study takes five to fifteen minutes of our school day. I can flexibly choose simple themes when other subjects are heavy and meatier themes when our academic load is light. The minutes add up! Over the past three years, we have learned so much in just a few minutes a day.

Here are several Word of the Day themes we have studied. Some are well-suited for elementary, some are better for preschool, and most can be adjusted for any age group.

TREES SPECIES– Sugar maple, pin oak, paper birch and sycamore. We’ve studied trees twice. One autumn, we read a page a day from Trees Every Child Should Know (skipping non-native trees), then identified the leaf type using Julia Rotham’s Nature Anatomy. Another summer, we read a poem a day from Cicely Mary Barker’s Flower Fairies of the Trees (skipping non-native trees). Then we looked the day’s tree up in our Golden Guide on trees and, if the species grew near our house, visited one to collect leaves and stroke the bark or climb.

THE HUMAN BODY– clavicle, patella, vertebrae, ligament, gluteus maximus, esophagus, tongue, liver, capillary, womb! This Word took a couple months! We’d locate the body part on ourselves then use it if we could- this doesn’t work for kidney, but it sure does for biceps and taste buds! We read Usborne’s lift-the-flap See Inside Your Body book one page a week and referenced a used physicians manual to learn about the skeleton, muscle groups, major organs and senses. We did a human body puzzle and watched the Scholastic video, Dem Bone, on repeat. We tested our nerve endings and jumped up and down and checked our heart rates and listened to each other’s stomachs squirch.

TERMS OF MEASUREMENT– inch, yard, acre, pound, cup, ½ cup, teaspoon, mile, degree, gallon, hour, second, etc. After they read the word on the board and told me what they already knew about it, I demonstrated its meaning using a ruler or measuring cup or milk jug or thermometer or stopwatch. We weighed ourselves and measured our fingers and scooped sugar and drew a giant thermometer acting out different temperatures.

AMERICA’S NATIONAL PARKS– Yosemite, Acadia, Arches, Yellowstone, Mesa Verde, Carlsbad, Badlands, Redwood and so on. I merged this Word with our calendar time by using a national park desk calendar. Each day for two months, we tore off a beautiful photo of a different park. We discussed what land forms we recognized then located the park on a map and discussed the climate and wildlife. We read from a kids’ national park guide and admired the Anderson Design Group’s park posters.

SHAPES– Oval, pentagon, heptagon, sphere, cylinder, equilateral triangle, acute triangle… I drew and labeled a shape on the board each day and we hunted for examples throughout the house or cut our own out of construction paper. Quick simple Word.

WEATHER– atmosphere, temperature, evaporation, barometer, thunderbolt, fog, stratus cloud, Zephyrus, nor’easter, tornado alley, etc. I timed this study with tornado season. We watched clips from the Weather Channel and studied applicable pages from Nature Anatomy. We read a few pages a day from the first half of The Magic Tree House Fact Tracker: Twisters and Other Terrible Storms. We read How Ben Franklin Stole the Lightning and The Magic School Bus: Inside a Hurricane and Snow Flake Bentley. We compared the temperatures of multiple cities (sneakily reviewing states and climates) and looked at satellite images of clouds. We collected rain water then boiled it into steam. We evaporated salt water and held magnifying glasses to the leftover crystals. We went outside in (safe) rainstorms and hypothesized which way the water would flow.

LAND FORMS AND WATER BODIES– Gulf or bay, hill or mountain, creek or river, butte or mesa, ravine or canyon… prairie, marsh, valley, sand dune, archipelago, tide pool, etc. I compiled a list of fifty words to define. We read definitions from several books like Nature Anatomy and Toad or Frog, Swamp or Bog? Also we perused photographs and videos online and noted real examples like the Mississippi Delta, the Rocky Mountains, Long Island Sound, Shenandoah Valley and Everglades.

BIOMES– Woodland, grassland, coastal wetland, tundra, desert, rainforest, coniferous forest and the like. We did this study in kindergarten. I searched our shelves for picture books and DVDs set in each biome. We didn’t reread the familiar books- I just spread them on the table for the kids to peruse. We compared the books’ artwork to online photographs and short National Geographic videos then talked about what animals might live there. To seal up the study, we looked at the physical maps in our National Geographic Kids Big Book of the World. I taught them to read the legend and they located the mountains and deserts and savannas and forests all while learning the continents.

BIRDS– Bluebirds, Coopers hawks, barn owls, cliff swallows, seagulls, bee hummingbirds and more. We studied birds twice too. Once, we read one beautiful page a day from the National Wildlife Federation’s World of Birds then looked up our bird on the Cornell Ornithology Lab’s All About Birds website and mimicked the bird’s sound! Another year, we read a page a day from the More Fun with Nature Take-along Guide and painted our bird or made it out of play dough. Also, we read Bird Talk Overheard by Ann Jonas over and over practicing our mimics. Feathers; Not Just for Flying is another great book. We practiced using our state’s bird field guide anytime we saw a bird outside.

STATES– Vermont and New Hampshire, North and South Carolina, New Mexico and Arizona, Minnesota and Wisconsin. We learned two states a day. We located each on the map and looked up the flag and investigated the biome(s), recalling which national parks were nearby. We read How to Make a Cherry Pie and See the USA and Steven Kellogg’s fantastically illustrated American tall tales on Johnny Appleseed, Paul Bunyan, Pecos Bill and Mike Fink, which follow the characters around the US. We did a map floor puzzle, where each state is a puzzle piece. We talked about their crops or exports and played eeBoo’s awesome US Geography Bingo game. Each morning, we reviewed the states they had learned then, to seal up the study, followed Draeger’s Draw the USA Easy Step-by-Step book to freehand draw the country. I strewed atlases and the States Fandex guide around the house for them to flip through at whim.

ANIMALS– Beaver, red fox, snapping turtle, coral snake, jackrabbit, lightning whelk, limpet, dwarf American toad, eastern chipmunk. This too was a reoccurring Word when the kids were younger because the study was such a hit. We studied one animal a day through the Fun with Nature Take-along Guides. I read aloud about the animal while they drew it. For the littlest kids, I quickly traced or drew a picture for them to color. We found the animals in other field guides to compare the images and looked up photographs and online videos about the critters too.

DINOSAURS– Stegosaurus, archaeopteryx, tyrannosaurus, pachycephalosaurus. When they were little, we learned a dinosaur a day.

THINGS THAT GO– Locomotive, excavator, tugboat, aircraft carrier, Model T Ford, forklift. This can be taken up a notch or down a notch depending on age. When they were little, I just used a Things that Go book and we learned a few similar vehicles a day.

FOOD– Apples, broccoli, cabbage, edamame, peach, pear, plum, wheat, yams and zucchini. This too was a kindergarten study. We practiced our alphabet sounds and our colors all while learning about different fruits and vegetables, following the Eating the Alphabet book. We learned what our bodies gain from each food’s nutrients, what season each is harvested and where in the world it is grown. Also we tasted them, naturally. Usborne’s lift-the-flap book, Where Food Comes From paired perfectly. I plan to study this Word again, diving deeper into health as well as applying their new knowledge of geography and skills in cooking.

THE NIGHT SKY– Waxing crescent moon, waning gibbous moon, Mercury, Venus, asteroid, Polaris, Betelgeuse, Orion, Perseus, Scorpius, Draco, Virgo and Callisto! This is the most involved Word of the Day we have yet undertaken and it was also the most fascinating and fun. The kids asked for an extension when it ended! Here’s what we did: First, I read H.A. Rey’s The Stars on my own to acquaint myself with the content and form my plan- I enjoyed every minute of that research but it definitely took time. We studied Rotham’s Moon Phases diagram and observed the moon each evening. We also did the famous Oreo moon phase craft- check Pinterest. Next, we studied one planet a day by reading a solar system science book and read about the god or goddess associated with the planet from D’Aulaire’s book of Greek Myths! Each kid drew the planet on a long butcher paper solar system map as I read: some kids preferred to copy the satellite image and some preferred to draw the god in their orb (as Oseid did in What We See in the Stars). After planets, we took on the constellations. We drew connect-the-dot images of the day’s cluster then hunted through Rey’s star charts for it. We read the Greek myth that accompanies each constellation and reviewed the Greek gods. The mythology Fandex is excellent. I recommend this study for the winter when the stars come out before bedtime. We spotted Venus, Jupiter and Saturn with the naked eye!

LATIN DERIVITIVES– Amble comes from ambulo, amicable from amicus, canine from canis, doleful from doleo, liberty from liber and library from libri… schola, versus, victor, ego, sol, regius, domesticus, solitudo, urbanus. A lot of English words come from Latin! This is a reoccurring Word of the Day because it is quick. I do it for two weeks at a time periodically while I get a breather. I write the Latin word on the board and they try to figure out what English word (or words!) are derived from it. This makes an excellent vocabulary and spelling exercise.

HOMONYMS– Vain and vein, hare and hair, pedal and petal and peddle, tale and tail, bass and base, rain and reign and rein, heard and herd, bear and bare. Like Latin, this is a quick vocabulary and spelling practice opportunity. They sound the Words out; we talk about it. Some of the conversations get quite funny, like when we talk about fishing for a bass string instrument and a musician playing a widemouthed fish or when we try to put all the words in one sentence. “The barren bear bared her beard then barely bit the board that the bored boar bore!”

MANNERS- George Washington wrote “Sleep not while others speak,” “Put not off your clothes in the presence of others,” “Spit not in the fire” and many other pieces of advice in his little book, Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior, which he wrote at age 14. We read through the applicable rules, many of which are quite funny. We role played how to act and how not to act in accordance with each rule, which was also quite funny. I intend to do a Manners II someday using cotillion’s etiquette.

Here are some more word of the day ideas that I have not implemented yet: US presidents, inventions, wonders of the world, taxonomic ranks, rock identification, the periodic table, world religions, cuts of meat, parts of a ship, the sign language alphabet, words coined by Shakespeare, world countries, state capitols, musical instruments, music genres, teas, art terms, architectural styles, horse breeds, phobias and literary terms.

The Word of the Day is very elastic. I can crunch it tiny to suit busy seasons or I can beef it up to fill a lighter schedule. If we need to memorize our address or talk about fire escape plans, I can stick it in to the Word of the Day slot. When we need to review old lessons to prepare for an upcoming subject, I can stick it in the Word of the Day slot.

Here’s how I organize it. I have tried typing my school plans up but I wasted so much time on formatting and editing that I switched to pencils and brad folders a long time ago. That’s just me. I like to see everything at once on a tangible two page spread. Also, I feel best when I have planned two months ahead so that I’m never scrambling when we finish a theme.

First, I messily brainstorm ideas on scratch paper and flip through books that I already have for content. If I don’t have a good book for it, I read amazon descriptions and put our library hold system to use or buy it used. I do not read the full books ahead of time (ain’t nobody got time for that); I just skim for the gist then learn alongside the children. I write titles and page numbers beside each word then jot down activity ideas. As I go, a natural order emerges so I start numbering the Words off. Sometimes my page gets pretty gray with erasing, but it works.

Next, I reorganize it. Down the side of my notebook paper, I write the weekdays. I record each Word, along with its resources and page numbers, into its slot for quick reference.

Every Sunday I review my plan and restock my roller cart with all the Morning Time resources I will need for the week to come. Then I take last week’s resources and strew them around the sitting area for kids to flip through in their downtime (that’s sneaky review). If sickness or life causes us to miss a day, I just erase my MTWRFs and bump everything down a day.

Each day, I record what we actually did in my Log- kids are full of ideas and the Word lesson often goes down a wonderful rabbit hole when they start thinking. Some of our best learning happens after they ask an unexpected question or launch some unplanned project. On those days, The Word of the Day may take an hour and I have to bump down my history plan to another day. But that’s okay because I want to raise self-led learners over here. Chase the spark. It’s worth it.