What it is: Big Huge Thesaurus is a must add to your classroom publishing center. The tag line of Big Huge Thesaurus says it all: “synonyms, antonyms, and rhymes (oh my!)”. Big Huge Thesaurus goes beyond other online thesauruses by giving students a wealth of synonyms (for each part of speech), words that sound like the original word, and rhyming words. When students find a word that they are curious about, they can click the link and it will send that word through the Big Huge Thesaurus.
How to integrate Big Huge Thesaurus into the classroom: If you have classroom computers, set up a writing/publishing center where students have all the resources they need to write. Big Huge Thesaurus should be one of those resources. Students can visit the writing center to add richness and interest to their stories, poems, and other writing. This Thesaurus does an excellent job of breaking down words. Use Big Huge Thesaurus on an interactive whiteboard or projector when learning new vocabulary. Type in the vocabulary word and have students construct its meaning using the synonyms that are generated.
Tips: I learned about Big Huge Thesaurus on Twitter this morning from several of my PLN. If you aren’t on Twitter with other educators, I highly recommend joining and following the fine folks I follow!
Leave a comment and share how you are using Big Huge Thesaurus in your classroom.
I was super excited about this site and tested it with numerous words while planning lessons. However, in the middle of a lesson we looked up “have.” Totally inappropriate terms/words listed for 3rd graders. I will not be using this site again with students. 🙂
@Noreen- oh dear, yes that does bring up results that are inappropriate! I have found the same to be true with many online dictionary/thesaurus tools. I try to ALWAYS preview words that we will look up before looking up in a class (especially with elementary students). I do the same with web searches. I wish that there was an age filter of some sort that could be turned on so that only school appropriate results came up! Thanks for the comment and warning for others.
Really great and useful things. I often use dictionaries, spell checkers and thesauruses. And most of all I like online versions of them, because they avaliable anywhere, where I can get Internet access, like synonyms dictionary.
And it’s possible because I always traveling and working on my small notebook, so these apps are great in different cases too.