Request a Quote

View Our Catalog

Visit us at the NCEA 2024 Conference Learn More

Teaching Tips

Have a Wonderful, Fantastic, Amazing, Incredible National Thesaurus Day!

January 18, 2019

by: Megan Parker

2 min

January 18 is National Thesaurus Day, which is the perfect time to celebrate our love of words!

According to the Oxford Dictionary, it’s quite probable that English contains more words than any other language. The English language is a blend of Latin, Old Norse, and Anglo-Norman French, and records of the early English language date back as far as the seventh century. Over time, different dialects converged to form the modern English that we know and love today.

With English being derived from multiple ancient languages, it’s no wonder we have a plethora of words from which to choose to convey similar meaning. Synonyms are a perfect example of the way that language can be nuanced. For example, if you say, “The child was ecstatic about her birthday present,” does it convey identical meaning as “The child was happy about her birthday present?”

Does the snow glisten, twinkle, glimmer, sparkle, or glint? Consult a thesaurus for assistance! Different synonyms have different connotations and nuance, and a thesaurus is the best resource for making sure you choose the most precise words to express your thoughts.

To practice using a thesaurus, have your students practice writing synonyms on our double line paper. Give them a simple word such as “big” or “tired,” and have them write as many synonyms as they can think of in print or cursive, depending on their developmental level in handwriting. When they can’t think of any other words, have them check a thesaurus to see which synonyms they might have missed. Have your children write new sentences with each synonym they missed in the thesaurus.

To give children ample space for practicing synonyms, try our A+ Worksheet Maker Lite, a free and easy-to-use tool for creating effective worksheets with double lines!

Happy National Thesaurus Day! 

 

Related Tags