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Word Play

Students will have fun finding and illustrating words within words and creating a fun or funny sentence that ties them all together.

Lesson Plan

Supplies Needed

Gather all the supplies needed to bring your craft ideas to life! From paints and markers to glue and scissors, our crafts section has everything to spark creativity and make every project truly special.

  • Paper

Steps

  • Step 1

    Ask students to come up with a list of long words. Then tell them there's actually an English word that has 189,819 letters! Pronouncing the whole word can take two to three hours. Interestingly, it's the chemical composition of titin, the largest known protein. Two other long pronounceable words are "honorificabilitudinitatibus" (the state of being able to achieve honors) and "antidisestablishmentarianism" (the political position of opposing disestablishment).

  • Step 2

    Have students write down some of the long words they came up with. Then have them look over the list and choose a few in which they can find several other words. Suggestions might include compartmentalize, painstakingness, cabinetmaking, etc.

  • Step 3

    Now have students find progressively shorter words within their chosen words. If they chose "cabinetmaking," for example, they might write "cabinet," "cabin," and "king." Ask them to illustrate the original word and its smaller words.

  • Step 4

    Have students write a fun or funny sentence that links all the words together. Then ask them to share their art and sentences with the class.

Standards

LA: Add drawings or other visual displays to written text to clarify ideas, thoughts, and feelings.

LA: Apply knowledge of how language functions in different contexts to make effective choices for meaning or style, and to comprehend more fully when reading, writing, speaking, and/or listening.

Adaptations

Play a "words in a word" game. Write a word on the board, then allow three minutes for students to write as many words as possible that use letters within that word. For "compartment," for example, they might write near, men, art, omen, pant, tarp, etc.

Challenge students to make up a new word and then write and illustrate its definition.