Today's Classroom Activities :

Analogies and Comparisons

Analogies Are Fun
Read/Poetry Read the following poem to your students. See if they can create new analogies themselves.

Toolbox Talk

by Heidi Roemer

Who needs a screwdriver?
I do, says the screw.
I need a screwdriver like a window needs a view.

Who needs a hammer
I do, says the nail.
I need a hammer like a deck needs a rail.

Who needs a saw?
I do, says the board.
I need a saw like a ceiling needs a floor.

Who needs a screwdriver,
a hammer, and a saw?
I do, says the Handyman;
I need them all.

Illustrated Analogies
Reading/Art/Writing Have each child work with one analogy and draw it on a piece of paper, leaving the final item blank. Put the complete analogy on the back of the paper. Present these to the class and see if they can suggest the correct completion. After providing students with correct analogies to work with, have them come up with some on their own. As the final item is guessed, discuss what made the analogy correct and how the student came up with the idea.

Journey to Kilimanjaro
This site provides an idea for a classroom activity which uses analogies in making comparisons about "How is a mountain like an island?" Materials and procedures are included.

Analogies
Students learn about relationships between words and then are expected to figure out the missing word for a list of analogies. This lesson is a good lesson to use with ESOL students or students who are having difficulty with word relationships.

Elementary Analogies: Mmm! Mmm! Good!
Here is an interactive hangman game format to practice analogies.

Hey Diddle, Diddle! Generating Rhymes for Analogy-Based Phonics Instruction
Students practice matching rhyming words using picture cards and apply phonological awareness—hearing rhyme—to analogy-based phonics (i.e., an ability to decode unknown words by identifying words with similar visual structure). Students use online resources to increase phonological awareness through rhyme.