Bringing JOY to vocabulary learning.
Vocabulary is the foundation of learning and communication. We want to inspire a community of life-long word lovers by making it easier, more effective, and more JOYful for educators and caregivers to help children expand their vocabulary from an early age.
Use our FREE lesson plans, tips, and tools to help put the JOY into JOYcabulary.
Latest Blog Posts
Bring calm and connection to your holidays with Secret Gratitude Givers — a joyful family game that teaches children to show kindness, gratitude, and appreciation. Perfect for Thanksgiving, vacations, or anytime your family needs a reset.
Bring gratitude and community to your classroom with these JOYcabulary lesson plans for Thank You, Omu! by Oge Mora and Gather Grateful by Megan Litwin. Students explore kindness, sharing, and thankfulness through rich Tier 2 vocabulary, guided reading prompts, and creative writing extensions. These paired texts make it easy to teach gratitude and empathy while building vocabulary and comprehension in the elementary classroom—perfect for fall literacy units or Thanksgiving-themed lessons.
This post shows Grades 3-5 teachers how to elevate a K-2 vocabulary lesson by choosing more precise, descriptive words about a text rather than simply lifting words from it. A simple shift in word selection leads to stronger character analysis and more meaningful conversations.
Vocabulary Matters! This post gives you 3 quick tips for learning new words and ways you can build vocabulary text sets at home around topics your family loves (like an upcoming trip to Boston!).
Vocabulary Notebooks are more than a list of words — they’re a playground for language. In this post, we’ll explore how students in Grades 3 and up can use these notebooks to organize, analyze, and play with words. From exploring shades of meaning to building word networks, Vocabulary Notebooks encourage curiosity, creativity, and ownership of vocabulary learning.