Thesaurus Activities for Third Grade

Activities can help familiarize grade-school students with reference materials such as thesauruses.

Third grade is an important time to get students excited about vocabulary. Building a strong vocabulary in elementary school will help prepare students to do well in upper grades as well as give them a chance to express themselves. While some students may have enough interest in language arts to reference a thesaurus on their own, creative activities incorporating a thesaurus will help children learn to use the book as a reference.

Elimination Game

Thinking girl

Prepare a list of grade-appropriate words that have several synonyms. Format the exercise as an elimination game. For Round 1: Give each child one word and have the student name one synonym. For example, if the word is container, the child may answer, "Box." Those who complete this task move on to round two. Repeat the process of round one, but have each child give two synonyms. Have the children who successfully complete both rounds participate in a bonus game. Name a word with several synonyms and have each child raise his hand when he thinks of one. Give each student one point for every synonym he can come up with. Use each word in the bonus round until all children are out of guesses. Give the winner a prize--perhaps a pocket thesaurus.

Mad Libs Story

Writing

Have students write a short stories about a subject of their choosing. Encourage them to pick something that they remember vividly, whether it is their favorite vacation, their biggest accomplishment or their dream job. Next, have the pupils circle all of the descriptive words in their stories. Finally, have the students rewrite their stories, replacing each of the circled words with a synonym. Discuss the differences between stories as a class.

Act It Out

Silly girl

Choose a list of words that have synonyms and that may be acted out easily. Some effective examples would be feeling words such as "happy" or "mad." For more advanced students, try descriptive terms such as "easy" or "scary." Write 10 words on slips of paper and put them in a hat or basket. Allow children to come in front of the class one at a time and draw a word. Have your volunteer act out his word without saying it to the class. Have the other students in the class shout out their guesses and write all of the guesses on the board. See how many synonyms the class comes up with for each word.

Cut It Out

Magazines

Set up several family-friendly magazines as well as scissors and glue. Instruct children to cut out pictures of things related to emotions. A happy face, a person crying or a lazy pet are all acceptable examples. Have children cut and paste several pictures onto their papers and label them with the first emotion that comes to mind. Then have them look up each word in a thesaurus and add any synonyms they can find.

References

• Thesaurus