As lovely as ....

Similes ....
How do you teach similies?
What resources do you use?


One evening recently on twitter, this message came to me:


I am currently working with 4 grade and trying to come up with a lesson on similes. Any suggestions??


Since this request came from a future elementary educator, I wanted to find some things to share with her. I began searching through my blog posts, my diigo bookmarks, and some former lessons to see what I could find. That was when it hit me that I talk about twitter being a great place to find resources and ideas, so maybe I should look too!


I sent out a tweet asking for advice and suggestions to share (it is nice to have a PLN to share with and pull from).


Here are a few of the ideas and resources that were shared with me:

• Snowflake Bently Activity and Idea Webpage which contains a book mark, an art project, information on the illustrator, directions to make a book, and lots of great links
• Picture book recommendation: My Dog is as Smelly as Dirty Socks (This book is full of similes about the family of the main character) 
• A great idea for a Color poem on this blog that coul be redone using similes: ThePolkaDotOwl: Poems Anyone? (other great stuff on the rest of the blog too)
• Someone also shared some powerpoints they have used as an introduction in the past: Similes and Metaphors
• Laurie posted this as a comment on an earlier blog post: "I used familiar movie characters like Shrek and Fiona and Donkey and Puss in Boots. I had the kids go over adjectives that were nice to describe a person. Then we talked about how to stretch that into similes. Shrek is as green as the grass in June from Shrek is green. And so on."
• Similes and Metaphors in Pop Culture   (Thanks John Downs)
  Mr. Wasko presents examples of similes and metaphors in pop culture- from Kanye to The Wizard of Oz.

And while I was looking for ideas for teaching similies, I came across this great collection of ideas for teaching figurative language using a Valentine's Day theme on ReadWriteThink!


Do you have any ideas to share about ways you teach similes?


Do you have any resources to suggest?


Thanks in advance

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