Language Arts, Reading, Vocabulary

Grade 5- 8

Objective

Students learn about twin words.

Directions

Introduction
Grammar is concerned with the way an overall text is structured to engage an audience and to deliver its message and with the way we choose particular words appropriate to that audience and message. It is important to generate an interest in words and to encourage children to be thoughtful about the words they use. If students develop an interest in language at an early age, they should continue to appreciate throughout their school life and into adulthood the richness and diversity of our ever-growing language.
Review twin words with students. These are words that are often paired together, especially in speech. Example: salt and pepper
Have students complete the Twin Words activity sheet.
Try some of these teaching strategies for additional grammar practice.
Homophone hunt
Write a list of words on the chalkboard. Challenge students to think of the corresponding homophones. They can also create cartoons to illustrate the homophones.

allowed/aloud	ate/eight	eye/I	bare/bear
bean/been	blew/blue	board/bored	brake/break
flea/flee	hear/here	knit/nit	one/won
pair/pear	sun/son

Fish
On blank playing cards write pairs of synonyms, antonyms, or homophones. Encourage children to play "Go Fish" with them.
Scattered letters
Write a selection of letters scattered on the chalkboard. Have children think of as many words as they can using the letters. Make the game more challenging by introducing a timer.
Word collection
Organize a word collection bulletin board in the classroom. Encourage children to find, collect, and then display words on the board. The board could have a number of different headings, such as Interesting Words, Words That Sound Funny, Words That Sound Like Noises, Words That Sound Important. Ask children to think of other headings they would like to use.
Tongue twisters
Challenge children to say a tongue twister quickly. Then have them make up their own tongue twisters for their friends to try.
She sells seashells by the seashore.
Odd words
Have children search for words with interesting or unusual features. Here are some to start them off.
hijinks: three dotted letters in a row
strength: eight letters but only one vowel
subbookkeeper: four sets of double letters
facetious: all the vowels in their correct order
cauliflower: contains all the vowels
education: contains all the vowels
Daily letter race
Challenge children to write in two minutes all the words they can that begin with the first letter of that day of the week.
Word link
Have one child say a word. The next child has to respond by saying a word that starts with the letter that the first word ended with. Make the game more or less challenging by setting a rule determining the minimum number of letters or syllables that the words must have, or require a specific part of speech.

Rule:	two or more syllables
First child:	humor
Second child:	rubble
Third child:	elephant

Continuous story
Divide the class into groups. Have one child in each group start a story by saying one word. The next child in the group then adds another word and so on until the group has, word by word, written a story that makes sense. The group that can go on the longest is the winner.

Resources

• Twin Words activity sheet
• pencils