3 Tips to Make Word Clouds the Favorite Activity of the Year

Have you wondered about using word clouds with your students? It is one of my favorite activities to do with my young and older students because it pulls in higher order thinking skills as well as technical know-how. Today I have 3 tips for you to use when planning and implementing using word clouds as a lesson with your students. 
1. You have to start with the right word cloud creator for the age group. For my youngest students I use http://www.abcya.com/word_clouds.htm because it is colorful, easy to use, and the students are already familiar with using this website. For older students, I like to use http://www.wordle.net/. It gives them more choice over their final outcome and requires a bit more tech-saavy.
2. The topic really should be something they have mastered. With my 2nd graders last year I used a word cloud as an assessment piece after they completed a unit on the Life Cycle of a Butterfly. 
3. Turn it into a higher order thinking task. Give students choice about which words to include and which words need to be put in more than once (to make them bigger than the rest). To support all learners I always include a word bank with definitions so that they spell everything correctly. For general or lower learners, they can copy and paste the word back and definitions into the word cloud creator. From there they can see how it looks and make decisions about which words to enter multiple times. 

BONUS: To really knock this out of the park, let them print the finished word cloud in color. If that isn't an option, let them save it as their desktop wallpaper. I know in my computer lab, the wallpaper goes with the login account, so anywhere they log in at school will have their super awesome word cloud. This will guarantee that they remember this assignment and take it seriously. 

Have you done word clouds before? Any advice or tips on making it a great learning experience? Leave your thoughts in the comments. Thanks for reading!