Phantom Tollbooth Guide

Lesson 3: Guided Reading: Chapters 2-4

Synonyms

The Phantom Tollbooth is a wonderful book to use for learning about synonyms.

What is a synonym?

Synonyms are pairs of words that have a similar meaning.

Here are some synonym pairs:

road, street
walk, amble
giant, huge
enjoy, like
throw, toss

In the Word Market, Milo and Tock met the five ministers who speak in synonyms. Look through Chapter 3 and make a list of some of the synonyms that they used.

Here are some:

Synonyms for Greetings:

Salutations
Welcome
Good Afternoon
Hello

Synonyms for Kingdom:

Country
Nation
State
Commonwealth
Realm
Empire
Palatinate
Principality

Synonyms for "of course":

Certainly
Precisely
Exactly
Yes

Activities

These activities should be done with some parental supervision. In some cases, materials need to be prepared ahead of time in order to complete the activity. Parents should make those preparations before children begin.

Synonym Sentences

1) Choose 5 words from Chapters 2-4. Write each word at the top of a piece of paper, and use it in a sentence.

2) Look up each word in a thesaurus and write down several synonyms for that word.

3) Write original sentences for each of the synonyms.

Synonym Pass-around Game

This is a team game that can be played at home with several members of the family.

Before playing, prepare two charts with five words from the book listed at the top of five columns. Make these on construction paper or tagboard so they will be sturdy enough to be passed around.

Form two teams.

To play, give a chart to the first member of each team. That person should write a synonym for one of the words listed in the column under that word. They may choose any of the five words on the list. When that person has written a word, he passes the chart to the next team member and that person takes his turn. If a student can't think of a synonym, he can pass to the next person and allow the next team member to have a try. When all members of both teams have had a turn compare the charts and discuss the results.

The team with the most correct synonyms wins. You may need to use a thesaurus to check on some of the synonyms listed.

Synonym Rewrites

Choose a paragraph from another book you have read. Rewrite the paragraph using synonyms for as many of the words as you can find.

Talk to your parent about the way the meanings have been changed, or how they have stayed the same.

  1  2  3  4  5