Word Choice Strategies

During many mini-lessons, bring in an object and let students feel it, smell it, and taste it if it is food, and listen to it, if it’s living. Then ask them to describe its attributes. Write the children’s suggestions on chart paper. Encourage them to describe even more (i.e. how soft is it? As soft as what?) Remind them to think this way when writing. At the end of the mini-lesson, students may return to their seats to write. They can continue what they’ve been writing, using what they learned in that day’s lesson, or they can choose to write a story about the object.

Deb Weissman

Using a thesaurus:: Look up the word blue in a thesaurus and find synonyms. Students create a “Blue Color Chart.” They copy the synonym, color a sample, and then find an item that is that particular color. {One child brought in a bunch of paint sample strips from her father’s paint store with about 30 different blues on it! } Make a list of synonyms for movement and then have students physically act out the movements: waddled, swaggered, inched, lumbered, etc.

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