Language Is Served: Games, Writing Prompts, and Other Language Arts Activities on the Yummy Topic of Food

157 Pages·2008·1.92 MB·English

by  Cheryl Miller Thurston

CHERYL MILLER THURSTON
Cottonwood Press, Inc.
Fort Collins, Colorado
Copyright © 2008 by Cottonwood Press, Inc. All rights reserved.
Permission is granted to reproduce activities in this book, in other than electronic form,
for the purchaser’s own personal use in the classroom, provided that the copyright
notice appears on each reproduction. Otherwise, no part of this work may be reproduced
or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from Cottonwood
Press, Inc.
Requests for special permission should be addressed to:
Cottonwood Press, Inc.
109-B Cameron Drive
Fort Collins, Colorado 80525
E-mail: [email protected]
Web: www.cottonwoodpress.com
Phone: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
Print ISBN: 978-1-877673-79-5
E-book ISBN: 978-1-877673-98-6
Printed in the United States of America
tABLE OF cONTENTS
(For a listing of activities categorized by topic, see the topic index, page 151.)
Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Healthy Scrambling. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Chocolate Mashed Potatoes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Syllable Challenge. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Help Hungry Henry’s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Don’t Knock It Until You Try It. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Hunger. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Beware of “Because”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Sizzling Synonyms. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
D-D-Doug’s D-D-Delight. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Fixer Upper. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Passive Sentences Must Not Be Written By You. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Crazy Cornucopia. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Write a Food Autobiography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Bits and Pieces. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Copycats. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Cool as a Cucumber . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Dictionary Stew . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
More Dictionary Stew. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Key Ingredients . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Coffee or a Roller Coaster. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Cafeteria. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Cheesy Rhymes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Olivia’s Cafe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Overstuffed Sentences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
In Common...Or Not . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Sentimental Journey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Delicious and Disgusting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Appetizing Antonyms. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Food to Write Home About . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
Realism Squad. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Dinner Conversation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
It’s All In Your Point of View. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Super-Sized Food Challenge. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Race of Tens #1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Race of Tens #2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Story Starters. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Metaphors and Similes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Satisfyingly Sweet and Savory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Food Chain. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Food Scramble . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Something Fishy’s Going On . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Sentence Combining . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
tABLE OF cONTENTS (continued)
Dishing up the Internet. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Where’s the Food?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
You Are How You Eat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Verbing Your Food. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Alex Hated It . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
You Are What You Eat. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
The Food Battle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Adding Some Order . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Audience, Audience, Audience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Alphabetically Speaking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
Verbing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Foreshadowing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Red Herrings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Goldilocks For The 21st Century. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Apostrophe-Itis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
Daily Bread . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
Jell-O Sculpture Contest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
Confusing the Customers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
Supporting What You Say. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
Real Nice, Real Good . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
In Other Words. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
In Fewer Words. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Paraphrase—And Sum It Up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
Personifying Food. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
How Many Ways…. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
A Spot of Plot. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Getting Hyperbolic. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
Synopsis Time. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Euphemistically Speaking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Pizza Monster. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Food House. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
Aples and Orenges—Spelling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Pick One . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Cliché . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Watching a Character. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
Strain Your Brain #1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Strain Your Brain #2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
Bare Bones. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
Compounds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
In The News . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
Ms. Persnickety. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
Ms. Persnickety Needs Help. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Ms. Persnickety Gets Testy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
Delicious Dining Network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Answer Keys. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Topic and Subtopic Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
introduction:
introduction:
introduction:
Because it is essential to our lives,food makes a good subject for classroom activities.It is
familiar to everyone.Everyone has something to say about it.It can arouse strong feelings.It is
part of our daily lives,yet it also plays an important role in special events,like birthday parties,
camping trips,wedding receptions,and Fourth of July barbecues.
We all have opinions about food and just about everything related to it.There is cooking—our
own and the cooking of others.There is fast food,gourmet food,health food,junk food,and ethnic
food.There is school cafeteria food,restaurant food,airplane food,and the “food”you buy to
snack on at the movie theater.There are important questions to settle,like what exactly should go
on a good hot dog,and should you ever,ever put salt on a cantaloupe or refrigerate a tomato?
In Language Is Served,food plays a prominent role in some activities.In others,it plays only a
minor role.The activities are quite varied,with topics appearing in no particular order.(English
teachers tend to need things in no particular order.One day they may be looking for a quick lesson
on verbs,the next for something on vocabulary,and the next for a writing topic.Some days,only a
word game will fill the bill—something that will wake students up to paying attention to the Eng-
lish language.) To help you find an activity that addresses a certain skill or topic,please see the
topic and subtopic index on page 151.
Many of the activities in the book involve games and creativity.That’s because I think playing
with language is so crucial to building language skills.Students need to develop an interest in
words and their quirkiness,versatility,and power.English teachers need to do all they can to turn
kids on to language.Play has power.
Although my name is on the book as its official author,it is not my efforts alone that have
made it possible.Samantha Prust and Sarah Stimely worked alongside me and assisted in so many
ways—writing,proofreading,fact-checking,you name it.Thank you also goes to Heather Madigan,
Mary Gutting,and Anne Marie Martinez,who all helped in a variety of ways.
I hope you enjoy Language Is Served and find it useful in your classroom.
Cheryl Miller Thurston

Student Instructions Name __________________________________
Healthy Scrambling
Unscramble all of the foods below.They are all foods that might be part of a healthy diet.
1. briwaserters _______________ 28. crobicol _______________
2. turgoy _______________ 29. chinaps _______________
3. culttee _______________ 30. saym _______________
4. ciknech _______________ 31. sargone _______________
5. shif _______________ 32. pepsal _______________
6. rotcars _______________ 33. calgri _______________
7. kilm _______________ 34. elovi loi _______________
8. rebda _______________ 35. motetosa _______________
9. frugiprate _______________ 36. yertuk _______________
10. madslon _______________ 37. eslirubereb _______________
11. alcree _______________ 38. tebes _______________
12. stapa _______________ 39. seburssl upsorst _______________
13. sgeg _______________ 40. nupres _______________
14. nionos _______________ 41. narsisi _______________
15. shormomus _______________ 42. malaeto _______________
16. sepalojan _______________ 43. sepatoot _______________
17. zorgaban nabes _______________ 44. werficaulol _______________
18. acheeps _______________ 45. snikmupp _______________
19. volesi _______________ 46. wornb cire _______________
20. ochaterski _______________ 47. galptneg _______________
21. elan korp _______________ 48. ronc _______________
22. der repepp _______________ 49. niprut segren _______________
23. crumbcue _______________ 50. yabler _______________
24. ignerg _______________
25. grusasapa _______________
26. abasnan _______________
“Health food
27. futo _______________
makes me sick.”
—Calvin Trillin
Language Is Served• Copyright © 2008 Cottonwood Press,Inc.• 800-864-4297 • www.cottonwoodpress.com
7
Student Instructions Name __________________________________
Chocolate Mashed Potatoes
What food stories are told in your family? Do you talk about a time when everything went wrong
with a special dinner or a special dish? Do you all reminisce about your late great-grandmother’s
wonderful homemade ravioli? Did something funny happen to your brother at a restaurant?
Do you laugh at how you all hated to eat at your mom’s best friend’s house when you were
younger—all because she drowned everything in really awful gray gravy?
One Seattle man always tells his grandchildren about the time his mom was away from home
and his dad cooked dinner.He was getting ready to mash the potatoes when he discovered they
were out of milk.They had chocolate milk,though,so he made the potatoes with that.They
turned out brown,and his son still talks about those chocolate mashed potatoes.
Write about a food story shared in your family.Talk to relatives if you need some help thinking
of one.If you can’t think of anything at all,share any kind of memory you have of an occasion
that involved food—maybe a special birthday meal,the time you got food poisoning,the pump-
kins you grew in your backyard,etc.
“All I
really
need is love,
but a little
chocolate now and
then doesn’t hurt!”
—Lucy Van Pelt in Peanuts
by Charles M. Schulz
Language Is Served• Copyright © 2008 Cottonwood Press,Inc.• 800-864-4297 • www.cottonwoodpress.com
8
Student Instructions Name __________________________________
Syllable Challenge
How many one-syllable foods can you list? How many two-syllable foods? Three-syllable
foods? Four-syllable foods?
Give yourself one point for every one-syllable food,two points for every two-syllable food,
three points for every three-syllable food,and four points for every four-syllable food.Each food
must be only one word (no two-word foods like hot dog).See if you can score at least 100 points.
The lists below will help you get started.
One-Syllable Foods two-syllable Foods Three-Syllable Foods Four-Syllable Foods
1. soup 1. waffle 1. banana 1. huckleberry
2. milk 2. spinach 2. potato 2. cauliflower
“Our
language is
funny—a fat
chance and a slim
chance are the
same thing.”
—J. Gustav White
Language Is Served• Copyright © 2008 Cottonwood Press,Inc.• 800-864-4297 • www.cottonwoodpress.com
9