Sunny Days in Second Grade: Synonym shaker

Ok, my friends. I have been thinking about this activity since the summer when I stumbled upon this crazy awesome idea about discovery bottles over at Tunstalls Teaching Tidbits. Please allow me to give her proper credit for planting this seed in my brain!

I had been saving a collection of Tropicana juice bottles for some time. Why? I mean really. I've watched enough episodes of Hoarders to know that I was on the verge of a real problem. However, something was preventing me from throwing these away! They were so pretty and clear and I knew they'd be good for something someday, dang it! Well, call off the "organization interventionist" because I am putting them to good use my friends! I present to you...The Synonym Search Shaker!

Nestled among the colored rice (directions below) are 20 word cards. Students try to mach the list of words on their answer sheet with a word from inside the shaker...by, um, shaking it! The rice moves around in the jar and the kids try to get the words to peek through, much like these Find-it games that the kids love. I actually made enough cards for 2 separate shakers cleverly named Synonym Search 1 and Synonym Search 2. I first filled the bottle with colored pasta, but the papers seemed to all clump together in one place. The rice is much more effective and actually a bit less noisy. I have plans for that pasta though, no worries! I also tried pom-poms which actually worked ok, but they end up being exSPENsive even from the Dollar Tree!

Coloring rice or pasta is pretty darn easy and kind of fun. Fill a large ziplock bag with rice, add about 2-3 tbsp of rubbing alcohol or vinegar. They work equally well. Add a few drops of food coloring. For the rice I used the gel food coloring in neon colors and I squirted it pretty liberally. Then close the bag, mush it around and then lay it out flat to dry overnight. Here's the finished product drying on my back table and then after I mixed the colors together.

The purple rice was dyed with vinegar, the others with alcohol.

So pretty! {& close...I was attempting to be artsy}

I made the word cards double sided so the kids will be able to spot the word easier in the rice. Just fold the word list in half and glue it shut before you cut the cards apart:

In case you didn't know: the black blade that comes with these trimmers will score a perfect fold line for you!

I have put together a file for you that includes everything you need to make your own synonym shaker - except the juice and rice of course. {I'll wait while you add that to your grocery list...} Click here to get the word cards and click the picture below to get everything else.