Synonyms with Pictures: Two Words, One Picture

Six picture cards fill this 1st grade page. Each shows one picture in a frame at the top, with a small linked-rings mark in the corner, and four words underneath. The child circles the two words that mean the same and tell about the picture. The sheet shown has a scared face, a whale, a racing car, a sleepy face with zzz beside it, an angry face and a happy face, and the pairs to find are afraid and scared, big and large, quick and speedy, tired and sleepy, angry and grumpy, and glad and cheerful.

The picture does the defining here. A first grader who does not yet know the word speedy can look at the racing car, find quick, and see that speedy sits beside it meaning the same thing, so the page teaches a new word through a known one. The two wrong words on each card are real describing words from other cards, so the child has to check each word against the picture rather than pick the longest. Four of the six pictures are faces showing a feeling, because feelings are where young children most need more than one word.

One sheet, six pictures, twelve circles. The whale is drawn as a friendly cartoon, so talk about how big a real whale is when you reach big and large. This face is readiness for the grade 2 synonym work and uses easier words than the base page. A good follow-up is to hold up a picture from a class book and ask for two words that tell about it.