Could that BEE a Synonym or Antonym?

This game is a prelude to what will (hopefully) become some better writing on my boy's part. His stories are simple sentences with unimaginative adjectives, nouns, and verbs.

I wanted to open his mind to a wider, broader vocabulary. I thought a little synonyms and antonyms game might help.

I made two pages of hexagon magnets, each shape containing three words. Their antonyms and synonyms were featured on adjacent hexagons.

I printed the pages on magnet paper, tediously cut them out, and then hit the library for some great books.

Are you rolling your eyes? I know. I know. You're probably tired of hearing me gush all over Brian P. Cleary's books. I can't help it if they're the most fun language arts explanations I've found; my son loves them as much as I do. 

For this lesson, we read Stop and Go, Yes and No: What is an Antonym? and Stroll and Walk, Babble and Talk: More about Synonyms. Wildly creative illustrations, a rhythmic tempo, great explanation of the parts of speech, and examples galore! If you've never opened one of the Words are CATegorical books, run to your local library and check one out now.

Prep

Download our synonym/antonym hexagons free. Print on magnet paper (it costs about $6 for a 3-pack of sheets at the craft store; feed it through your printer one page at a time). Cut out.

Access a 2-page PDF of synonym/antonym hexagons here.

Play
I put all the magnets word-side-down in a small flat tub. One was drawn and placed on our refrigerator (any large metal surface will work). Then each of us picked five hexagons as our "hand." (It doesn't matter if the opponent sees your magnets.) Then we went back and forth trying to add the magnets in our hand to the refrigerator, matching up synonyms or antonyms on the words on the shapes. It doesn't take long before a honeycomb shape emerges!

If we didn't have any magnets to play, we drew a new one from the bucket. Still can't play? Then you forfeit your turn and the opponent gives it a shot.

Every time you are able to add a hexagon magnet to the refrigerator, you get another turn to play any magnet from your hand (no drawing on the second - or subsequent - plays during a turn, though).

Watch as you build an entire honeycomb of antonyms and synonyms!

The first player to play all of the hexagons in their hand wins.

Repetition to Remember Synonym vs. Antonym

With each hexagon that was played, my son and I said aloud whether the words we were matching were synonyms (words with a similar meaning) or antonyms (opposites). This reinforced what we learned from reading Cleary's books!

Nuts and Bolts Game

Can you imagine asking a 6-year-old to pick up Cheerios one at a time and place them in a bowl? Me neither. I can just hear the “bbbboooooorrrrrriiiinnnnggg” coming out of his mouth. When my son’s perfectly delightful reading summer camp teacher told me this would be a great way to increase his fine motor skills for writing, I simply nodded. Then I went home and brainstormed. There had to be a more fun way to give him some fine motor practice, right?

That’s when I came up with the nuts and bolts game and ushered my husband off to the hardware store to pick up the necessary supplies.

Supplies

8 1/2-inch x 2 1/2-inch carriage bolts

8 (or 16) 1/2-inch hex nuts (8 nuts for quick play; 16 for longer play)

Labels (download a PDF from Google Docs here)

Cards (download the front and back printables from Google Docs)

Sticker paper to print the labels on

Cardstock to print the cards on


How to Play

1. Each child selects one bolt and draws a card.
2. Depending on what that card says (either ‘rhyme,’ ‘opposite,’ or ‘shape’), he/she must look at the word/shape on the bolt and find the nut with the appropriate word on it and then screw it on.  For example, if a child picks the bolt with the word “head” on it and draws the “opposite” card, they must find the nut with the word “feet” on it. (The cards are color-coded to make this easier.)
3. If the nut a child needs has already been used, he/she returns the bolt to the pile and play continues with the opponent taking a turn.
4. The game ends when either all the bolts have been matched with nuts or no more can be matched.

This game is great for practicing rhyming, shape names, and opposites! To make it challenging, I purposely picked rhyming words which had different spellings (e.g., sun and done instead of sun and fun) and a few shapes I was sure my son wasn't familiar with, such as parallelogram and pentagon.

Note: The first time we played this, I only labeled eight of the "prolonged play" nuts. It was pretty discouraging when my son couldn’t make the matches from the cards he drew, because the nuts he needed were already used. Adding a second set fixed that and prolonged the game.

While these nuts and bolts are probably too big to technically give my son the fine-motor experience he needs, they definitely provided a little afternoon fun!