Teaching with Captain Antonym!


First, I must give credit for this to Leah, my friend with whom I teach.


Preparation: Leah and I cut ants using the Ellison Die Cut for tiny ants at our school. They are close to 2 inches long. We also cut out the larger parts to make a three piece worm and add legs to make it "Captain Antonym!" I read today that teaching is 25% preparation and 75% theatre...I agree!


Lesson: We introduce antonyms using "Captain Antonym!" to keep it humorous for our students. He is on a quest to find all the words that have opposite meanings in the world! This should help them remember that antonyms are opposites. We do a huge wordsplash on the white board of antonyms that the children call out. Once the wordsplash is begun, students may choose to go and add more when they think of other antonyms during station time. Their classmates are quick to tell them if the words they have put up are NOT antonyms. :) For a station/center, our students use the tiny ants to write two words that are antyonyms on the two body parts (thorax and abdomen) . The students must write some antonyms and discuss this (pair/share) with a buddy before writing them in black marker on the ants. These are added to our Synonym  Flowers display in the wall (see Synonym Flowers).

This year we gave the students the worm parts to make the bigger ants at the beginning of the year. My ants were put on Captain Antonym's Ant Hill. See picture below. I really liked the tiny ants better, though. I'm searching for a picture of those....