Wondrous Words

Who knew an online dictionary could be so much fun???  My students love using Word Central when we do dictionary and thesaurus work.  Word Central is an easy to use website by Merriam-Webster.  In addition to a dictionary, thesaurus, and rhyming dictionary, there are many other fun things for students to do.  There is a Build Your Own Dictionary to add made up words.  My favorite is bookster - a person who really likes to read books.  There are also some fun spelling games the kids go nuts over.  

I have seen paint chips being used all over Pinterest and thought there has to be a great way to use them with Word Central.  As a fun way to practice using the thesaurus I had my students look up "colorful words".  On the palest color of a paint strip, I put a "boring" word like said, good, or nice.  Then students used the Word Central thesaurus to look up more colorful words to write on their paint strip on the darker colors.  They came up with amazing word choices!  All the paint chips make an awesome, colorful bulletin board.  Here are a few examples of the colorful words:

I just got a new bucket at Target for my Wondrous Word Center.  I'm very excited to break it out after vacation.  I added a two new types of word cards: wondrous words (to look up definitions) and rhyming words (to look up words in the rhyming dictionary).  Should be fun to add to my word wall!

 

As far as paint chips go - I've gotten them at Lowe's, Home Depot, and local hardware stores.  I always explain I'm a teacher and would like to use paint chips for a school project and ask before I take handfuls.  The hardware store down the road from my school was especially happy to give away paint chips and even offered a bag for me to hold them all.  There are so many different shapes and sizes, I can't imagine all the great projects that can come from them!