Homophones—those tricky words that sound the same but have different meanings and spellings. When you hear “homophone activities” you might be quick to picture a 1st grader with picture cards for “tale” and “tail,” but there are actually several homophones that are more complex to spell and understand the meaning of, which makes them perfect for upper elementary homophone activities.
More advanced homophone word pairs perfect for upper elementary word study:
- accept – except
- principle – principal
- foul – fowl
- way -weigh
- strait – straight
- doe – dough
- suite – sweet
- clothes – close
- patients – patience
- pole – poll
- capital – capitol
- raise – rays
- cite – site – sight
- need – knead
- pedal – peddle
- throne – thrown
- vein – vain
- creak – creek
- wail – whale
- than – then
- real – reel
- leak – leek
- allowed – aloud
- cereal – serial
- groan – grown
- hoarse – horse
Why bother teaching homophones to upper elementary students? As you can see, many homophones are complex vocabulary words that students encounter in their reading and writing. So, now that you have a list of more complex homophones, how about some ideas for homophone activities that will encourage your students to have fun playing with them?
Fun and Creative Homophone Activities for Vocabulary Exploration:
1. Homophone Charades:
The first ideas on our list of homophone activities will add a touch of drama to your lessons. For this homophone charades, make sure all your guessers have a dry-erase marker and board or a scrap piece of paper and a marker. Choose a student to act out one half of a homophone pair. Just yelling out the answer won’t work, because homophones sound the same, so guessers will need to write their answer with the correct spelling in order to solve the charade challenge.
2. Double Homophone Sentenences:
A double homophone sentence goes something like this, “My voice was hoarse from yelling at at the runaway horse.” There are a couple of different ways your students could play around with double homophone sentences.
You can provide students with the list of homophones above and challenge them to create as many double homophone sentences as possible. Or you can create the sentences yourself, but leave blanks where a homophone would be and have your students work to fill in all the blanks. For a super challenge, students can write double homophone narrative stories that incorporate several homophones.
3. Homophone Hallways:
These fun homophone activities combine vocabulary and art for a hallway display that showcases how much your students are learning. Give each student in your class half of a homophone pair to illustrate using whatever art supplies or techniques they’ve been working with lately.
After each part of the homophone pair is completed hang then opposite one another in your hallway, so guests will see one half of the homophone pair on their right side and it’s partner on the left as they walk by.
4. Homophone Read the Room:
Use these homophones task cards to create a gallery walk around the perimeter of your room, then let students get up and move while they work.
Give each student a recording sheet and have them work their way around the room solving homophone riddles as they go. This activity works great as a reading station activity or early finisher homophone activities.
5. Homophone Hunt:
Transform your classroom into a detective agency for homophone activities! Provide students with a list of homophones and set them loose to find examples in books, articles, or even everyday conversations. Encourage them to record their findings and share them with the class.
Homophones are more than just child’s play; they’re big kid play as well. In the process, they’ll a build wider and deeper vocabulary that will also benefit them in writing and reading comprehension. Try out one or two of these and let me know how it goes. If you need a quick set of homophone task cards, you can grab those here too!
Did you miss the blog post on homographs? Check that out for more vocabulary practice ideas!