Meaning connections

Playing Meaning connections

Read the cards and match each one to its partner. Find six pairs, with no timer. Think about the meaning before choosing.

What this game practises

Year 5 vocabulary grows through wider reading and attention to word structure and precise meanings. Meaning connections introduces words useful in discussing books, information and investigations. Biography and autobiography are related, but the writer’s relationship to the life being described changes the meaning. Read definitions carefully instead of choosing a partner because two words appear in the same general topic. Compare an account of a person’s life written by somebody else with an account written by that person. Explain why the first can be a biography and the second an autobiography. Then use chronological to describe how either account might be organised. The vocabulary should help explain a real text, rather than remain a set of disconnected definitions.

Progress and trying again

The normal game controls let children finish, save stars on this device and play again. A previous best result is kept when a later attempt scores less. Matching games count incorrect pairs; ordering games score the first check of each round; sorting games give another chance after a mistake. Take time to talk about a choice rather than racing.

Return to the learning collection for curriculum guidance, examples and activities to try away from the screen.