5 Reasons to Add a Splash of Color to Vocabulary

Looking to amplify your vocabulary instruction? Just add coloring! Coloring vocabulary has a myriad of benefits for learners, both academically and social emotionally.

It was one of those weird assembly schedule days. You know the kind? The schedule was adjusted so that students would not attend their seventh and eighth hours, but teachers would still see periods one through six. This type of schedule adjustment is common in middle and high schools, but it can leave teachers wondering how to provide meaningful learning opportunities without moving beyond and leaving those seventh and eighth hour classes scrambling to catch up.

Students were seated in groups, quietly chatting as they colored some vocabulary pages. On the screen, a palm tree swayed in the wind to the beat of some calming instrumental music. As students worked, they were strategically choosing colors, asking one another about examples, parts of speech, and personal connections for a variety of words. If an admin were to walk into the classroom at that moment, they would hear students using these words in their conversations, trying them on in different contexts like one would if shopping for a new pair of jeans. The room was buzzing, so to speak.

This type of energy and enthusiasm toward learning new vocabulary is what all teachers aspire to achieve. As a middle and high school English teacher turned instructional coach, I’ve found a variety of ways to bring vocabulary to life. So what is it about coloring pages, specifically, that is so special?

1. It’s regulating.

Coloring is a calming activity. It can help students regulate their emotions.

Think about the myriad of ways students experience stimulation throughout a school day. People and noise are constantly surrounding them. Pressure closes in to complete tasks before the end of the bell, to stay organized, and to be prepared with homework, a charged device, a filled out planner, and more.

Periodic opportunities to color give students a chance to decompress. Coloring can help us focus because it’s a form of mindfulness. As students focus on color choice and staying inside the lines, they are thinking about the present moment. Students can tune out the noise around them and focus on the now.

Using vocabulary coloring pages may be helpful during certain high-emotion times of the school year. Students may be hyped up during holiday weeks, on the days of important sporting events, or after a stressful event. These days present ideal opportunities to learn some new words while also regulating emotions in a calming atmosphere.

2. It’s social.

Coloring offers unique opportunities for connections with others. Done right, coloring can help you build strong relationships with students. When students are coloring, it’s easier for them to talk to one another because the focus is no longer on making eye contact but on the page in front of them. It’s similar to how walking side by side with someone opens up conversation.

When students are engaged in meaningful conversations about vocabulary words, it frees the teacher up to sit with each group and focus on connecting. To create this type of environment, I strongly suggest explicitly discussing what it should look, feel, and sound like during the coloring activity.

It should look like focus, choosing colors for symbolic reasons, always having a colored pencil in hand. It should sound like talking about the words: What do you think a good example of verdant would be? Do you think it’s a specific shade of green? I think of verdant being more like grass than like green olives or evergreen trees. It should feel calming, productive, and rewarding when we learn new things.

Then, be sure to join students for their first round of purposeful vocabulary coloring. Sit with different groups, model the types of questions you want to hear, and call them back together for a redirect if you sense one is necessary.

Once you have students trained to engage in productive coloring, you will have the flexibility to use this activity any time you want to work with small groups. Think: reading conferences, learning stations, writing feedback groups, literature circles, goal setting and reflection conversations, and more!

3. It’s low-floor, high-ceiling.

The way I design my coloring vocabulary sheets truly makes them low-floor, high-ceiling. Basically, this means that it’s an activity that has an entry point for every readiness level (a low floor). But, students can take their critical thinking skills about the word to any possible height (high ceiling).

For example, students make connections and identify examples and non-examples. These can be basic, or they can be very thought-provoking. They can be short, or they can be long. Students area also encouraged to think symbolically about the colors they choose and to add annotations to the poems on each page. They can do both of these things at varying depths of knowledge.

The flexible nature of the built-in differentiation makes this activity perfect for sub days. We teachers are always looking for meaningful activities for students to complete while we are gone. It needs to be something they can do on their own but they won’t be practicing “wrong” to reinforce bad habits. It needs to be something that keeps them engaged and lasts most of the period.

These pages, especially when students aren’t completing them for the first time, check all of those boxes.

4. It’s therapeutic.

Coloring is a healthy way to relieve stress and anxiety. According to the Mayo Clinic, it calms the brain and helps your body relax. After my cancer diagnosis, some friends bought me a coloring book and colored pencils. While I had never really taken the time to color before, the opportunity seemed ideal during a time when I just needed to relieve stress and forget about things like surgery and chemotherapy.

While most of the teens sitting in front of us are not dealing with cancer, they are confronted with a variety of types of stress on a daily basis. Whether this stress comes from home, school, extracurricular activities, or work, coloring provides a calming outlet to purge some of the predictable stressors students experience on a regular day, let alone a dysregulating one. We have to teach students healthy mechanisms that may work for them when it comes to stress and anxiety so they can use those tools when they need them. Coloring may not work for everyone, but it might work for many!

Think about higher-stress times in your classroom. Tests may come to mind! Vocabulary coloring sheets can be a meaningful way for students to regulate once they finish the assessment.

5. It’s creative.

Because coloring can put us into a bit of a meditative state, it helps us clear our mind of clutter. This clarity, in turn, allows for new ideas and inspiration. Coloring can help us be more creative. Colors inspire us to play with different shades, patterns, and techniques. This can spark new connections and associations with words that we wouldn’t normally have.

Think about using vocabulary coloring sheets to spark students’ creativity with words. After completion, hang the words on a wall to create an informal word wall. This word wall has the potential to inspire students to use their new words in speaking and writing or to make connections among words on the wall.

Coloring pages can provide meaningful learning opportunities to be creative, learn new words, and regulate emotions. Plus, they are the perfect solution for high-energy days, crazy schedule days, and pre- or post-holiday days when students need something to help them regulate while staying in the learning zone.

Use these seasonal vocabulary pages to kick annoying assembly schedule lesson planning to the curb!

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Seasonal Vocabulary

This bundle contains 40 words that students might see on state testing and while reading as well as use while writing. Each page features a word alongside many brain-based opportunities for coloring and connecting.