Thesaurus Mad Lib!

Your second grader may know how to use a dictionary, but what about a thesaurus? Here's a fun holiday activity that will have you and your child singing, laughing, and using this great writing tool to build important skills now and for many years to come.

What You Need:

• A thesaurus
• A pencil
• A piece of paper, with the following ten words listed on it: let, shiny, games, saw, poor, glows, laugh, join, names, reindeer (if using a different song, pick out some simple words from the lyrics and write on a piece of paper)
•  The lyrics to Rudolph, The Red-Nosed Reindeer, or another favorite holiday song

Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer,
Had a very shiny nose.
And if you ever saw it
You would even think it glows!
All of the other reindeer
Used to laugh and call him names.
They never let poor Rudolph

What to Do:

Step 1
Give your child the list of words, a pencil, and the thesaurus.

Step 2
Explain that a thesaurus is used to find other choices for words. When you look up a word in the thesaurus, you see a list of words with similar meanings.

Step 3
Help your child look up the first word on the list: let. Have him write one of the synonyms for let on his list (beside the word let).

Step 4
Repeat for the rest of the words on the list.

Step 5
Now show him the words to Rudolph, and have him read it aloud.

Step 6
Have him use his pencil to replace the underlined words from Rudolph with the words from his list.

Step 7
Have him read or sing the new version aloud. It should sound pretty silly, but still make sense! Repeat with other favorite songs and before you know it you'll have a thesaurasaurus on your hands!