Fish and Old Man
Vocabulary Activities for The Old Man and the Sea
So you’ve chosen to read The Old Man and the Sea, by Ernest Hemingway. Good choice! This book won the Pulitzer Prize for excellence in literature in 1953.
Activity #1: Word Sorts Write the words from the Word Banks on index cards or slips of paper. Mix them together and sort them into three groups: words you know well, words you know a little about, and words you have never encountered before. Spread the words out rather than piling them up. Look up the words you know a little about in a dictionary or in an online dictionary. Make a few notes on the cards for those words so you will know them better when you see them again.
Now, sort the words again. Put them in three groups: adjectives, nouns and verbs. Use a dictionary or online dictionary to check and see if you’re right. (Hint: you should have 9 adjectives, 8 nouns, and 3 verbs.)
One more sort! Sort your words in to groups that show the connotation you have for each word. (Feel free to revisit lesson #2.02 to review connotation.) Create a group of words with a positive connotation and another with a negative connotation.
Activity #2: Criss-cross Puzzles Use the word banks to complete the criss-cross puzzles below. Do Puzzle #1 before you start reading and Puzzle #2 after you have read the first 3 sections of your book. First, try to complete them without counting the letters in each word. After you have done as many as you can, use the length of each word to help you place them in the correct spaces. Read the clues carefully and work to understand the words better so you will know them when you see them in the story.
Word Bank #1, p. 1-35 gaunt benevolent erosion phosphorescence congregated precision spurt ineffectual iridescent gelatinous
Word Bank #2, p. 36-127 filaments carapaced taut storm-bound straggler leprous maw scythe shoal splice
Santiago’s fishing boat
This is a
So you’ve chosen to read The Old Man and the Sea, by Ernest Hemingway. Good choice! This book won the Pulitzer Prize for excellence in literature in 1953.
Activity #1: Word Sorts Write the words from the Word Banks on index cards or slips of paper. Mix them together and sort them into three groups: words you know well, words you know a little about, and words you have never encountered before. Spread the words out rather than piling them up. Look up the words you know a little about in a dictionary or in an online dictionary. Make a few notes on the cards for those words so you will know them better when you see them again.
Now, sort the words again. Put them in three groups: adjectives, nouns and verbs. Use a dictionary or online dictionary to check and see if you’re right. (Hint: you should have 9 adjectives, 8 nouns, and 3 verbs.)
One more sort! Sort your words in to groups that show the connotation you have for each word. (Feel free to revisit lesson #2.02 to review connotation.) Create a group of words with a positive connotation and another with a negative connotation.
Activity #2: Criss-cross Puzzles Use the word banks to complete the criss-cross puzzles below. Do Puzzle #1 before you start reading and Puzzle #2 after you have read the first 3 sections of your book. First, try to complete them without counting the letters in each word. After you have done as many as you can, use the length of each word to help you place them in the correct spaces. Read the clues carefully and work to understand the words better so you will know them when you see them in the story.
Word Bank #1, p. 1-35 gaunt benevolent erosion phosphorescence congregated precision spurt ineffectual iridescent gelatinous
Word Bank #2, p. 36-127 filaments carapaced taut storm-bound straggler leprous maw scythe shoal splice
Santiago’s fishing boat
This is a