Thesaurus Lesson Plans

Students create trading cards for elements in the Periodic Table. In this chemistry lesson, students are introduced to the Periodic Table of Elements and the concept of elements in the world around us. Student groups use the Visual Thesaurus to investigate the properties of various elements. Students design trading cards with the name of the element, its properties, and an illustration on each card.

Students navigate the Visual Thesaurus to find keywords for research.  In this keywords lesson, students use synonyms, hypernyms and hyponyms to find keywords. Students understand why some searches are effective and some are ineffective. 

This lesson has students have a Spelling Bee and then analyze the words for spelling rules. In this Spelling lesson, students work in groups to find word patterns using the Visual Thesaurus.

Students understand how a thesaurus is used. In this thesaurus lesson, students recognize that the thesaurus gives the entry word, definition, synonyms, antonyms and parts of speech. Students complete a worksheet using thesaurus entries.

Looking for a game that teaches 5th graders about how to use a thesaurus, and reinforces the concept of synonyms? Each player will have the opportunity to use their "tools" in this engaging lesson. They will use their thesauruses in order to find synonyms to the word on the board. Clues are given to see if he/she can guess what word is written on the board behind them. Tip: Great for a review.

Learners practice expanding their vocabulary by utilizing a thesaurus. In this word choice lesson, learners discuss the purpose of looking up words in a thesaurus and how to choose colorful words that make their writing stand out. Learners read the story Thesaurus Rex and identify several boring adjectives.

In this lesson students demonstrate strategies for encountering unfamiliar vocabulary words in preparation for the SAT. Using Visual Thesaurus computer software, they interpret contextual clues, solve sample sentence completion questions, and write original sentence complete questions.

In this lesson students are engaged in the practical uses of a thesaurus and to reinforce the use of synonyms as a way of making writing more interesting.

Students use a thesaurus to define and learn synonyms for words and improve a piece of their writing. In this thesaurus and synonyms lesson, students highlight weak words, use the thesaurus to find stronger synonyms, and edit their stories. Students then repeat the activity using a word processing thesaurus.

Students use the Visual Thesaurus to create word association poems. In this word association poem lesson, students discuss poetry and word association. Students practice creating poems based on word association. Students then use a Visual Thesaurus to create their own word association poems.