Curated OER
Using a Thesaurus
Students become familiar with the Thesaurus as a resource. In this Thesaurus lesson, students complete a worksheet by finding other words to replace the given word and use the word in a sentence.
Curated OER
Heroic Vocabulary: Using Decoding Strategies and Thesaurus
Develop the decoding skills of your middle and high schoolers. Scholars participate in a classroom activity that requires them to decode a word with a prefix and suffix. They apply the skill of breaking the word into parts of meaning as...
Curated OER
Seeing Words in a New Way
What's the best resource to use when looking up words? Use Visual Thesaurus to see a word's meaning. The class accesses the interactive website and then compares and contrasts the difference between using a traditional dictionary and the...
Curated OER
A Victorian Vocabulary Challenge
Introduce your high schoolers to some tough vocabulary. No, I'm not talking about the SAT list! Revisit Victorian literature to find tricky words we still use today. Using the Visual Thesaurus, learners will preview vocabulary in a quote...
Curated OER
Rooting One's Way to Meaning
Discover the Virtual Thesaurus with your class. They use the Virtual Thesaurus to assist them in an inquiry-based approach to discovering the meanings of some common Latin and Greek roots. Each child then teaches a particular root and...
EngageNY
Resource Materials and Gathering Information: Reading Another “Choice” Text from the Research Folder
Look it up. Scholars use a dictionary and thesaurus to verify the meaning of the research vocabulary words they defined in the previous activity. They then use sticky notes to write a synonym for each word. Finally, individuals choose a...
Curated OER
Learning Vocabulary by Using Reference Materials
Finding engaging ways to help your middle schoolers build their vocabulary is not easy to do. The lesson presented here offers a great way to motivate them to build vocabulary by making it into a game. Teams of pupils use a dictionary...
Curated OER
Clicking Your Way to Poetry: Composing Word Association Poems with the Visual Thesaurus
Use a Visual Thesaurus to compose word association poems. Discuss poetry and word association, create word maps, then practice creating poems based on playful word associations. A perfect way to celebrate "Poem in Your Pocket Day" (April...
Curated OER
Arctic Writing
Fifth graders analyze photographs in order to write descriptively. In this descriptive writing lesson, 5th graders use the Internet to research and view photographs of the arctic. Students use descriptive language to write...
Curated OER
The Heart of the Matter
Upper elementary pupils learn about the blood transportation system and anatomy of the human heart. They fill in an outline of the human heart (not included) focusing on the flow of blood to and from the heart. Using stethoscopes,...
Curated OER
Eating Right with a Little Help From the VT
Students explore the food pyramid. In this nutrition lesson, students identify the 5 food groups and sort foods according to the group in which they belong. Students use the Visual Thesaurus to complete a food groups worksheet and...
Curated OER
Introduction to the Visual Thesaurus
Young scholars examine the basic functions of the online Visual Thesaurus, exploring how simple words may sometimes have multiple meanings. In small groups they select words and explore the Visual Thesaurus, and write a short play using...
Curated OER
The Continents and Oceans of the World
Students explore world mapping skills. In this world geography lesson, students identify and label the continents and oceans on a world map using the Visual Thesaurus. Students generate mnemonic devices to help memorize these terms.
Curated OER
Down the Knoll Without the Water
Young scholars use a thesaurus to find synonyms for selected words in fairy tales.
Curated OER
"To Be Or Not To Be" And the VT
Using the online Visual Thesaurus, nascent actors work in groups to analyze and interpret Hamlet's "To Be Or Not To Be" monologue. Individuals then craft a contemporary version of this famous speech and present their adaptation...
Curated OER
Mind Your Pints and Quarts: Making Sense of Liquid Measurement
Elementary and middle schoolers identify different units of liquid measurement. They use the online Visual Thesaurus to learn about the relationships between units of liquid measurement.
Curated OER
When You Reeeaaallly Want to Say Something
Kids paraphrase an entry from The Elements of Style, and then revise a sentence. They use the Visual Thesaurus and find synonyms for the phrase very pretty, brainstorm a list of intensifiers (as alternatives to really and very),...
Curated OER
Degrees Of Meaning
Introduce the idea of a word and its synonyms having different degrees of meaning. Each individual chooses a word that he or she wants to work with and fills out the included worksheet using a thesaurus. Consider having a word bank of...
Curated OER
Mammal's Around the World
Fifth graders, exploring all the ins and outs of using a computer, publish their own mammal papers with the use of word searches, thesaurus and spell checks. While in the computer lab, they research their mammal and country on the...
Curated OER
Shades of Meaning
Learners use words with similar meanings to analyze implied meanings. In this word connotation activity, the teacher introduces the activity by asking students whether a new product should be advertised as "newfangled" or...
Curated OER
The Changing Me
Third graders study the human body. In this health activity, 3rd graders discuss that everyone's body is growing, measure body parts using a tape measure, and color the body worksheet.
Curated OER
Salinger and the Vocabulary of the Vernacular
Young scholars discuss the use of slang expressions in literature. In this literary analysis instructional activity, students examine the use of slang words and expressions in the popular novel Catcher in the Rye. Young...
Curated OER
Revision
Young poets learn the value of using a thesaurus when crafting and revising poems. They examine poems rich in figurative language and then a revised version with the figurative language removed. To demonstrate what they have learned,...
Curated OER
Take the Prefix Challenge
Learners form words using prefixes. In this prefix lesson, students compete in a "prefix challenge" to see which team can combine a set of twelve prefixes with a set of twelve words fastest. Learners enter their words in...