Synonyms and Spring

When I think of the word spring, I think of longer, warmer days with a bit of rain expected.  Since the weather has been anything but spring-like (still feels like winter), I thought I’d take one of the Pinterest ideas from below and bring it to life in my own classroom.  The kids created their own Van Gogh flowers with oil pastels for our bulletin board and they look amazing. Thanks to the original poster for the great idea! I just put in my order for my own classroom set of oil pastels since the finished project looks amazing.  Funny thing is, warmer weather came the following week! Coincidence? I think not!

We also worked on synonyms this week.  There is a great activity called Synonym-Cinnamon Rolls  (thanks for making it a freebie!) on TPT from Lesson Plan Diva for practicing synonyms that my kids enjoyed prior to making their own ‘synonym’ rolls.  Once they got the joke- cinnamon vs. synonym, everyone got tongue tied – myself included.

Check out our synonym rolls here!

 

Grab the 'synonym' roll template here!

Update 5/16:  After a few trial and errors, I created a  NEW 'synonym' roll template that you can grab here.  The dot should be to the left when writing a word and  students can now space their words out in an easier way.

Want a copy of the Synonym Rolls sign for your hallway, grab a copy here!  Enjoy!
Update 5/16: I headed back to this post to show you a fun way to display your rolls!

We played the match up game as a whole group and now it’s a center.  After, I traced a cinnamon roll for each of the kids.  They worked as a team to brainstorm as many synonyms as they could for a chosen word and then wrote the synonyms in each of their rolls.  They colored them, cut them out, and glued them on brown construction paper.  Finally, they bubble cut around the edge.  I created some signs for the hallway and the class loves when a teacher compliments them on their work. However, they always walk out saying, “Now, I’m hungry!”

If you're working on synonyms and antonyms and looking for some center ideas and printables check out Synonyms and Antonyms or the BUNDLE that's on sale for a limited time!
Here's some fun books to teach synonyms. 

Synonyms:

• If You Were A Synonym by Michael Dahl
• Chicken Cheeks by Michael Ian Black
• Stroll and Walk, Babble and Talk: More about Synonyms by Brian Cleary & Brian Gable
• Pitch and Throw, Grasp and Know: What Is a Synonym  by Brian Cleary and Brian Gable
• Big, Bigger, Biggest! by Nancy Coffelt

Antonyms:

• Stop and Go, Yes and No: What Is an Antonym?   by Brian Cleary & Brian Gable
• Straight and Curvy, Meek and Nervy: More about Antonyms  by Brian Cleary

 The kids got a kick out of all the different synonyms for 

rear end in Chicken Cheeks =)

As you can see, my kids LOVE to color all their work in when they are done!

Here's one of the synonym printables.

Here are some of the center cards for synonyms and antonyms.

All of this practice with synonyms will be great when we start our poetry unit!