Finding Synonyms

By Ms. Jacobsen

First, we begin with a word.

Let’s try the word “evening”.

What do I do if I don’t know what that word means?

Look up the word “evening” in the dictionary.

For example, the word “evening” means late afternoon or early night.

Now that we know what the word “evening” means, let’s find a synonym for it.

But first we need to know what a synonym is, so take out your trusted dictionaries again ...

A synonym is a word whose meaning is the same or almost the same to that of another word in the same language.

Can you think of a word that means the same thing or almost the same thing as evening?

If you chose the word “night”, you are very close, but that’s not quite it.

The word “evening” can be a little tricky so let’s use another resource to help us...

The Thesaurus!

A thesaurus is a simply a book of synonyms, which makes it a perfect resource for finding synonyms!

Look up the word “evening” in your thesaurus and what do you find?

How many people found the word...

Dusk? Nightfall? Close of day? Sundown? Sunset? Eve? Twilight?

No, not this Twilight...

This twilight.

After looking at our list of synonyms we discover that “evening” is the time of day that happens right around sunset, before it gets completely dark outside. We sometimes refer to this time as “dusk”.

Let’s practice finding synonyms!

Please take out your language arts journals. You are about to find some synonyms!

Please find synonyms for the following words:

Start Rock Pretty Road City Finish Small Lead

You have 8 minutes.

Go!

Tomorrow we will go to the computer lab and play a fun computer game that will help us learn more about finding synonyms for words.

Here is the website: http://www.arcademicskillbuilders.com/games/frog/frog.html

Anotonyms

On Wednesday, we will be learning about antonyms. If a synonym is a word that is the same or almost the same as another word, what do you think an antonym is? What do you think an antonym for “evening” might be ? Write your answers in your language arts journal.

Content Standards:

2nd grade Language Arts/Vocabulary and Concept Development: 1.7 Understand and explain Antonyms and Synonyms

3rd grade Language Arts/Vocabulary and Concept Development: 1.4 Use knowledge of antonyms, synonyms, homophones, and homographs to determine the meanings of words.

3rd grade Language Arts/Vocabulary and Concept Development: 1.7 Use Dictionary to learn the meaning of words

4th grade Language Arts/Vocabulary and Concept Development: 1.5 Use a Thesaurus to determine related words and concepts