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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

The Visual Thesaurus and the SAT

For Teachers 6th - 12th
Demonstrate strategies for tackling unfamiliar vocabulary words in preparation for the SAT. Using Visual Thesaurus computer software, middle and high schoolers interpret contextual clues, solve sample sentence completion questions, and...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Thesaurus Power

For Teachers 3rd - 6th
Give your class the advantage of Thesaurus Power! They will use a thesaurus to understand word meanings and relationships. They focus on how a thesaurus functions and how it gives the entry word, definition, synonyms, antonyms, and part...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

In Other Words: Using a Thesaurus

For Teachers 3rd - 8th Standards
Help your young writers stay engaged with their writing through the practical use of a thesaurus. They work to reinforce the use of synonyms as a way of making writing more interesting and to determine word meaning by finding synonyms....
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Clicking Your Way to Poetry: Composing Word Association Poems with the Visual Thesaurus

For Teachers 4th - 12th
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...
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Curated OER

It's Opposite Day

For Teachers 3rd - 5th
Celebrate Opposite Day by using a Visual Thesaurus to match words to their antonyms. They match a list of vocabulary words to their antonym counterparts using the Visual Thesaurus, and then they play Antonym Bingo with the words from...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Thesaurus Forage

For Teachers 5th
Looking for a game that teaches students 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...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Thesaurus Practice

For Teachers 9th - 12th
Learners practice consulting a thesaurus to find synonyms for each of 14 words on a list. They circle one of three choices as a synonym to match the target word. The list features adjectives you might call esoteric. 
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Curated OER

Mapping Your Identity: A Back-To-School Ice Breaker

For Teachers 3rd - 12th
Identify the unique personal attributes of your class members. Begin by viewing the Visual Thesaurus and discussing displayed attributes associated with famous American leaders. Using these identity maps as models, pupils generate nouns...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Introduction to the Visual Thesaurus

For Teachers 5th - 8th
Students 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 the...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Heroic Vocabulary: Using Decoding Strategies and Thesaurus

For Teachers 8th - 12th
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...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Jump-Starting Research with Visual Thesaurus

For Teachers 3rd - 8th
Learners navigate the Visual Thesaurus to find keywords for research.  In this keywords lesson, students use synonyms, hypernyms and hyponyms to find keywords. Learners understand why some searches are effective and some are ineffective. 
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Seeing Words in a New Way

For Teachers 6th - 12th Standards
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...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Exploring the Power of Puns

For Teachers 6th - 12th Standards
Read and analyze a variety of Shakespearean and contemporary puns using Visual Thesaurus computer software. Middle and high schoolers analyze a pun as a class; in small groups they analyze a Shakespearean pun using contextual clues and...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Rooting One's Way to Meaning

For Teachers 3rd - 12th
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...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

A Victorian Vocabulary Challenge

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
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...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Introducing Synonyms to Early Writers

For Teachers 3rd - 5th
Upper elementary schoolers examine the concept of synonyms and how using a variety of vocabulary through synonyms can expand their writing skills. They revise a paragraph using synonyms located on the Visual Thesaurus and participate in...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Using a Thesaurus

For Teachers 6th - 8th
Students discover how to use a thesaurus. In this language arts lesson, students explore thesauruses as they look up words and write sentences for the new words they encounter.
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Using a Thesaurus

For Teachers 6th - 8th
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.
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Degrees Of Meaning

For Teachers 4th - 5th
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...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

When You Reeeaaallly Want to Say Something

For Teachers 3rd - 12th
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), then...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Thesaurus: Don't Be Repetitive

For Teachers 4th - 9th
Students use a thesaurus to expand their usage of language in their written work.  For this thesaurus lesson, students work with the reference book to add variety to their word choices. Students then adjust their spoken , written, and...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Mammal's Around the World

For Teachers 5th
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...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Number Types: Where Vocabulary Meets Numbers

For Teachers 6th - 12th Standards
Rational, irrational, real, natural. All these words can refer to numbers. Who knew? Learners use the Visual Thesaurus and a semantic feature analysis grid to examine the different attributes of numbers. Step-by-step instructions for...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Using Words as a Way into Rick Riordan's The Lightning Thief

For Teachers 4th - 8th Standards
Use the Visual Thesaurus to predict the subject matter of Rick Riordan's book The Lightning Thief. A pre-reading activity encourages middle schoolers to use context clues and word meaning to discover what the book is about. After they...

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