Synonyms
are words which have the same, or nearly the same meaning,
e.g. dirty and unclean, sad and unhappy.
Antonyms are words which mean the opposite of each other,
e.g. dark and light, strong and weak.
The
following activity develops the children's understanding of the meanings
of the above two terms, while increasing their range of vocabulary.
1) Begin by explaining the two terms, giving examples to illustrate the point.
2) Have a list of words which have lots of synonyms / antonyms. Some are listed
here:
| strong |
big |
happy |
short |
soft |
fast |
easy |
| fat |
nice |
new |
good |
quiet |
bright |
warm |
3) Split the class into an even number of groups. Label half of the
groups "Synonym" and
half of the groups "Antonym".
4) Say one of the words on your word list. Each group then has to think of
as many synonyms and antonyms for that word as possible (depending on the group's
label given earlier). The children can have a fixed time limit to do this,
or can continue until they run out of words.
5) Now count up the number of words each group has produced and award points
to the group with the longest list.
6) Repeat using different words. You could also swap the groups, so the "Synonyms" groups
now find antonyms and vice versa.
7) This would also be a useful exercise in using a thesaurus, so if there were
enough for one per group, the children could use these to add to their own
lists.
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