High Flying Words | Teaching Word Knowledge

I’m really tired of snow (welcome to Michigan — snow almost year-round!) and I was dying for a way to liven up my classroom a bit and give it more of a spring feel. I could have gone with flowers, but I wanted something that my boys would be okay with. So, I went with kites detailing word knowledge. That’s spring, right?

This fun activity is a great way to get students thinking about word knowledge, including the idea of synonyms and antonyms, along with increasing student engagement.

We had been discussing using a thesaurus and expanding our word knowledge with antonyms and synonyms. For some reason my kids this year could really use some practice with finding words in the dictionary so I thought this activity would give them extra practice with that too.

I provided each student with a 9×9 square. I chose the colors green, pink, and yellow for a spring feel. Then I had them choose two words that they were not familiar with but would like to learn. First they wrote the word in the center of the kite and boxed it. Next, they looked the word up in the dictionary and wrote the definition on the bottom half of the kite along with a sentence that used the word. In the upper left corner I had students list several synonyms (not just one) and in the upper right corner the antonyms. They created a cute border and divider lines. After completing the other side with another word, I had them add yarn and two bows of the other colors.

We hung these from our ceiling and are enjoying our high flying words.