Sample Lesson Plan: Synonyms and Antonyms
Grade Level:
Subject:
3-5
Language Arts
Objective/Purpose:
Students will be able to provide examples of synonyms and antonyms for a specific word in poems or
other literary works.
Description:
Students will be provided with a poem or other literary work with selected words highlighted. For each
selected word in the text, the student should provide at least 1 antonym. When that exercise is
completed, the student should do the exercise again but this time incorporate synonyms for each
highlighted word.
Materials:
 List of examples to use in group/class activity.*
 Electronic version of the poem or literary work with specific words highlighted by teacher using
Talking Word Processor. Create one document labeled ANTONYMS and one labeled SYNONYMS.
Premier Literacy Tools:
Talking Word Processor
English Talking Dictionary
Activity/Procedure:
 Teacher should first explain what an antonym is, writing a word on the board and providing
several examples of antonyms. Write a sentence on the board, selecting a specific word for
which students will provide antonyms. Have students substitute their antonym in the same
sentence.
 Have the students look up the word in the English Talking Dictionary and see what additional
antonyms are found. (Show students how to do this if they haven’t previously used ETD for this
purpose.)
 Perform a similar class activity for synonyms.
 Provide students with the electronic version of the poem or literary work, making sure that the
selected work is an appropriate size with sufficient opportunities for antonym and synonym
substitution.
 Have each student open Talking Word Processor. From within Talking Word Processor, students
then open the electronic document provided by the teacher. Students use TWP to read the
poem or literary work. Students will find and substitute an ANTONYM for each highlighted word.
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Sample Lesson Plan: Synonyms and Antonyms
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Students open and use the English Talking Dictionary to find and review antonyms for each
highlighted word. They can type the word or copy and paste the word from ETD into TWP then
use TWP to read each sentence after a word is substituted to make sure that the sentence
makes sense and the substituted word was correctly typed.)
Students should make any necessary changes, save their document.
Students should perform similar activities for the SYNONYM document.
Students should email or print out their documents to teachers to review. (Depending on
teacher preference, students could use TWP to extract the antonyms/synonyms to a separate
document and print only the list of words for the teacher to review.)
Student Product:
Students submit their modified versions of the electronic documents to the teacher. This can be via
email, by posting on network, or in printed form.
Assessment:
Students should choose words that are appropriate antonyms/synonyms based on the context of the
word in the sentence. Selecting just any word from the ETD list may not be appropriate. At least 90% of
the highlighted words in the original document should be substituted with appropriate words either
from the ETD or from the student’s knowledge/experience.
Teacher Notes:
*Possible class introduction could include short rhymes such as the following, finding antonyms for the
underlined words.
Itsy Bitsy spider climbed up the water spout
Down came the rain and washed the spider out
Out came the sun and dried up all the rain
Now Itsy Bitsy spider went up the spout again!
Or find synonyms for these underlined words:
Old Mother Hubbard
Went to the cupboard
To get her poor doggie a bone,
When she got there
The cupboard was bare
So the poor little doggie had none.
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