Vocabulary Development

The words in these lists are the focus of vocabulary development throughout this theme's oral language, listening comprehension, and small-group activities. The list includes a wide variety of academic and content area words as well as everyday conversational words that children add to their vocabularies through interactions with families, teachers, and peers.

Theme Vocabulary

Core Words

  • applesauce
  • busy
  • buy
  • cider
  • city
  • country
  • crops
  • crowded
  • customers
  • farm/farmer
  • fruits
  • grow
  • market
  • meadow
  • noisy
  • orchard
  • pie
  • quiet
  • subway
  • taxi
  • travel
  • vegetables
  • wheat

Basic Words

  • back/front
  • buses
  • buy
  • cake
  • cars
  • chick
  • cow
  • duck
  • eggs
  • milk
  • money
  • pig
  • rooster
  • sell
  • sheep
  • sidewalk

Story/Poetry Vocabulary

  • apartment
  • barn
  • garden
  • grow
  • half
  • lay
  • nature
  • pick
  • pond
  • ripe
  • rotten
  • tickets
  • tractor
  • trade
  • transportation
  • vines
  • whole
  • wool

Basic Words

  • car
  • cousins
  • door
  • goat
  • grapes
  • idea
  • jelly
  • stung
  • supper
  • today
  • trees
  • wood

Challenge Words

  • bend in the road
  • hollow

Math Vocabulary

Measuring/Comparing Words

  • alike/different
  • equal/same
  • cup/pitcher
  • fewer/more
  • heavy/heavier
  • light/lighter
  • more/less
  • whole/part
  • clock
  • scale
  • share
  • time

Number Concept Words

  • how many
  • in all/left
  • number
  • sort

Money Words

  • buy/sell
  • cent
  • coin
  • dime
  • dollar
  • nickel
  • penny
  • quarter

Challenge Words

  • combine
  • separate

Science Vocabulary

Oral Language Card 44

  • machine
  • move
  • pull
  • push
  • wagon
  • wheelbarrow

Oral Language Card 45

  • barn
  • city, country
  • farm, farmer
  • farmhouse
  • fields

Oral Language Card 46

  • ball
  • balloon
  • city, country
  • heavy, light
  • park
  • weigh

Oral Language Card 48

  • clothing
  • sheep
  • sweater
  • wool
  • yarn

Social Studies Vocabulary

Oral Language Card 43

  • busy
  • city
  • country
  • noisy
  • quiet

Oral Language Card 47

  • bus
  • bus driver
  • car
  • city
  • ride
  • street

Oral Language Card 49

  • buy
  • fruits
  • money
  • store
  • supermarket
  • vegetables
Core Words
Teach and reinforce these words with all children.
Basic Words
Three-year-olds, English language learners, and children with limited vocabulary experience may need reinforcement of these words.
Challenge Words
Introduce these words as children's interests indicate.