Frindle
Author: Andrew Clements
THIS IS SUCH A GREAT BOOK ABOUT THE ORIGINS OF WORDS! You could use it as a jumping off point for dictionaries but I used it for the thesaurus. After we read this book I gave each student a template of a peacock's body and construction paper in various shades of blues and greens. Students made the peacock's body and enough feathers to fit around him (most had between 8 and 10). I had students pick words out of a hat that I had prepared and they had to find 10 words that could replace the word they choose and write them on each feather.
The original word went on the peacock's body. For example: If the word they chose was "happy" that went on the body and words like "glad, blissful, cheerful, joyful and elated" went on the feathers. Students could use a dictionary or thesaurus but they had to go to ClarisWorks and use the thesaurus in the program to find at least one of their words. This also gave students familiarity with the program and practice using a tool I would like them to use in their word processing.