Lesson Plan – Synonyms, Antonyms & Homonyms

Your learner has set some learning goals around reading and writing in the context of

grammar. Let’s think of synonyms, antonyms and homonyms as clothing and

accessories in a wardrobe. Your piece of writing can be dressed up in various styles

according to the accessories and clothing you choose. Sometimes you may opt for a

plain, sensible style, and other times you may dress up for a flashier more dramatic

style. In this lesson plan you can practice exercises found in your Tutor Training Manual

such as phonics, sight words, a cloze activity, and more.

Information on preparing for your lesson can be found in your Tutor Training Manual.

READ Saskatoon’s website (http://www.readsaskatoon.com/volunteers/resources.htm)

includes more tips.

Essential Skills practiced in this lesson

• Reading

• Writing

• Oral Communication

• Thinking

Learning Objectives

• To create a list of synonyms, antonyms, and homonyms

• To become familiar with various synonyms, antonyms, and homonyms

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Sample Lesson Plan

Date: _________________ Learner’s Name: ______________________________

Tutor’s Name: ________________________________________________

Time:

___________

Materials:

• Synonyms, Antonyms, and Homonyms lesson sheets

• Flash cards – some can be pre-made by you and some you can make

with your learner as you brainstorm together

• Dictionary and thesaurus

• It’s More Than Words

http://www.readsaskatoon.com/pubs/more_than_words.pdf

Activity Sample Question

5 Minutes Warm up:

• Conversation about week

10 Minutes Review and Overview:

• Discuss learner’s goals again and write them

down in a place both of you can refer to

often

• Discuss how using synonyms, antonyms, and

homonyms can increase vocabulary and skill

in reading as well as improving memory

15 Minutes Lesson Part A

Learning skill to be presented:

• Writing

• Oral Communication

• Thinking

What are some common synonyms, antonym, and homonyms that you can think of?

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Learning Objective:

To create a list of synonyms, antonyms, and homonyms.

Learning Exercises:

• Brainstorm synonyms, antonyms, and

homonyms and write these on flash cards

• Dictionary and thesaurus

10 Minutes Break

15 Minutes Lesson Part B

Learning skill to be presented:

• Reading

• Oral Communication

• Thinking

Learning Objective:

To become familiar with various synonyms, antonyms, and homonyms.

Learning Exercise:

• Read activity sheets included in lesson

• Tic, Tac, Toe & Jeopardy

Ask the learner how they will be able to use the information presented in this lesson.

How can we use synonyms, antonyms, and homonyms in our speech and writing?

5 Minutes Summary and Homework:

• Review work covered in lesson, relate it back

to goals, and plan for what learner would

like to achieve for next lesson and give

homework if learner would like homework.

Make sure the homework is based on the

skill they would like to build

• Document this completed task in the

Portfolio Items List that was included in the

folder you and your learner received at your

first meeting

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Synonyms

What are Synonyms?

Synonyms are different words that have the same or similar meanings. An example of

two synonyms are the words rush and hurry. There are several more words that have

the same meaning and there are even idioms that have the same meaning, for

example, “Get a move on!” is an idiom that means to hurry or move quickly.

Synonyms are easy to find if you have a thesaurus. A thesaurus is similar to a

dictionary but rather than give you a definition of a word, it gives you a list of other

words that have the same or similar meaning.

Why use Synonyms?

We use synonyms for a variety of reasons; look at the examples listed below to practice

using them:

1. Spice up your writing; synonyms can any word in the English language. Instead of

writing, “That’s a nice car” you could write, “That’s an elegant automobile” if your

reader audience would respond more to the image that sentences creates.

However, if your reader audience is that of a pop culture magazine, it might be

more appropriate to write, “That’s a sweet ride.” Synonyms help create the mood of

your sentence according to who you are writing for or what kind of image you want

to portray.

2. To avoid being repetitive, you can use synonyms of a word when you have to write

it twice in a sentence. For example, “My children are 3, 5 and 8, they’re really great

kids.” If you say children twice it can sound repetitive and boring but by changing to

kids in the second part of the sentence you are avoiding that.

3. Use a synonym to be more specific about an idea, for example: “I have dance class

every Wednesday night” becomes more interesting and informative when you say, “I

have salsa class every Wednesday night.”

4. Remember that synonyms are either the same or similar to another word so if it is a

new word for you when you find it in the thesaurus be sure to look it up in the

dictionary as well to confirm that is the right word to use in place of the one you

want to change. For example, “The old man had drank too much whisky and was

blustery and violent in all of his ramblings” would not make sense if you wrote, “The

old man had drank too much whisky and windy and violent in all of his ramblings.”

Blustery and windy have similar meanings but not the same meaning.

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5. Use a thesaurus to enhance and improve your writing by looking up the word you

want to change and choosing something more difficult.

One thing to note, however, is that while there may be synonyms for a word there may

not always be an antonym for it. For example, leopard, oak and linguini all have

synonyms such as cheetah, tree and pasta, but there are no antonyms for any of these

words. That brings us to our next section: Antonyms.

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Antonyms

What are Antonyms?

An antonym is a word that means the opposite of another word. For example, “happy”

is the opposite of “sad”. “Happy” can be the opposite of more than one word, for

example: angry, miserable, and unhappy. Be sure to choose the correct antonym for

your word depending on its meaning. For example, “light” can mean bright in which

case the antonym is “dark” but if the meaning is “light in weight” then the antonym is

“heavy”. If you’re not sure if an antonym’s exact meaning, find the definition in a

dictionary first.

Why use Antonyms?

Antonyms are opposites of words and, like synonyms, can help us make our writing

more interesting or for greater clarification when using a contrasting idea. It is

particularly useful to use a thesaurus to help improve your vocabulary of antonyms, as

well as synonyms.

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Activities

Tic-Tac-Toe

There are several ways to practice new vocabulary or practicing using new ways to write. In this case, I chose a game to practice using both synonyms and antonyms. Now, you might think that games have no place in adult literacy, but imagine my delight and joy when I came across this idea online and not only did I get to play games on the computer, I got to do it while I was “working”. It’s a clever twist on a simple game of Tic-Tac-Toe.

To carry this game into a more “acceptable” world of learning (you can see my reluctance at leaving this game) you can write down all of your antonyms and synonyms on flashcards, create a story using them and then make a cloze activity from your story. You could even have some fun with your short story and first underline all of the nouns in the story and decide which ones you can find antonyms for and see how that changes your story or how nonsensical it becomes!

What You Need:

• Blank tic-tac-toe game boards, drawn on scrap paper • Pencil or pen • Thesaurus and/or dictionary

What You Do:

• Each X acts as an antonym and each O acts as a synonym • Choose a simple word that has a lot of similar words such as “happy” • When the X player marks an X on the game board they must write down an

antonym to “happy” in that square • When the O player marks an O on the board game they must write down a

synonym for “happy” in that square

For example: Let’s name our two players A & B, how original and scintillating, I know. (not sure what “scintillating” means? Find a synonym for it in the thesaurus and see if you can guess the meaning ... that’s how I found it!)

Player A marks an X and thinks of an antonym for the word “happy” and writes “sad” in the square.

Player B marks an O and thinks of a synonym for the word “happy” and writes “excited” in the square.

They continue to mark their X’s and O’s, finding more and more antonyms and synonyms until there is a winner. You can play this game over and over and over ... really you can, I did! Just choose a different word and you’re set! You could try

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changing who is the X and who is the O so you can both try synonyms and antonyms. Not only is this a simple, quick game for your session, it’s a great game to take home to the family!

Adapted Dec.30, 2010 from: http://www.education.com/activity/article/antonym_synonym_tic_tac_toe_second/

Name that word!

Practice finding and using synonyms and antonyms by answering the following questions:

1. What are synonyms (using words or idioms) for these words:

Solid Rush

Muted Wet

Icy Ahead

Fast Slow

Rare Normal

Many Few

Heavy Skinny

Light Dark

2. What are antonyms (using words or idioms) for these words:

Solid Rush

Mute Wet

Icy Ahead

Fast Slow

Rare Normal

Many Few

Heavy Skinny

Light Dark

Synonym/Antonym Jeopardy

Practicing new vocabulary can be tedious and tiring, here is another fun way to spice

up learning synonyms and antonyms.

What You Need:

• Index cards for flash cards • Pencil , pen and/or marker • Thesaurus and dictionary

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What You Do:

• Make a list of antonyms and synonyms to learn, these can also be new sight word lists, either one to include both sets or two separate lists.

• Start with your first word and write a description of it on one side of the index card

• On the flip side of the card write the corresponding answer into a question. For example, if your word is “Dry” you can look up the definition in the dictionary or simply write down your own definition if you don’t need a dictionary to do so.

Let’s do the first one together, “Dry” means: something that is not moist or wet

• It is helpful to write “synonym” or “antonym” at the bottom of the card to clarify which type of word you are looking for.

• To make the game more challenging once your learner has learned these words, you can then change the desired word to an antonym so they first would have to think of the answer as a synonym and put it into a question and then would think of an antonym and put that into a question so the final result would be: “What is wet?”

• To make this even more challenging, you can eliminate various words so that more new vocabulary is being used. For example, you can eliminate “wet” as an option for an antonym and then your learner can think of other words such as “humid, damp, moist, foggy, misty, soaked, etc.” Use a thesaurus to help you.

• You can discuss all of these synonyms first when you are working with synonyms before switching to antonyms.

• You can also make additional sight word lists as you progress throughout the game.

Adapted Dec. 31, 2010 from: http://www.proteacher.net/discussions/showthread.php?t=24727

What is Dry?

Something that is not

moist or wet.

Synonym

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Homonyms

What are Homonyms?

Homonyms have a few types of words:

• Words that have the same spelling and same pronunciation such as “stalk”

meaning to harass or follow and “stalk” meaning the body of a plant.

• Words that have the same spelling and different pronunciation such as

“desert” meaning a dry sandy place and “desert” as in to leave a place.

• Words that have a different spelling and same pronunciation such as “meet” as

in to be introduced to someone and “meat” as in the food that you eat.

Adapted Dec. 31, 2010 from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homonym

Why use Homonyms?

Homonyms teach us about the importance of context in a sentence in order to identify

the correct word. They also teach us about the importance of correct spelling to ensure

that the right word is used when writing a sentence.

The ABCs of Homonyms

A H O V Ad/add Hi/high Overdue/overdo Veil/vale

Allowed/aloud Hair/hare Oar/ore Vial/vile

B I P W Ball/bawl In/inn Pail/pale Wade/weighed

Band/banned Its/it’s Pi/pie Waist/waste

C J Q Y Chews/choose Jam/jamb Quartz/quarts Yolk/yoke

Clothes/close Jeans/genes Quints/quince Yule/you’ll

D K R Dear/deer Knight/night Rap/wrap

Die/dye Knead/need Read/reed

E L S Eye/I Lessen/lesson Sacks/sax

Eight/ate Links/lynx Sawed/sod

F M T Flower/flour Maid/made Taught/taut

Flee/flea Meet/meat Tea/tee

G N U Gym/Jim No’s/nose Use/ewes

Guest/guessed Not/knot Utter/udder Adapted Dec. 31, 2010 from: http://www.enchantedlearning.com/english/homonyms/

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An activity you can do to practice synonyms, antonyms and homonyms either together

or separately is a game of Memory.

What you need:

• Index cards, markers, pens or pencils

• A dictionary and thesaurus

• Prepared word lists of homonyms

What you do:

Make pairs of flashcards according to what you want to practice and have fun making

word pairs while working on memory at the same time. Arrange the flashcards upside

down on a flat surface, making sure that each one has a corresponding pair and

practice matching the words as synonyms, antonyms or homonyms. For an extra

challenge, try all three in one game!