Identify the Meaning of Words in a Story

This activity is all about the meaning of words.

How many synonyms can you think of for the word small?

Remember that a synonym is a word with the same, or a very similar, meaning.

Here's a few:

Little

Tiny

Miniature

Microscopic

And minute

Read the story opening below:

As the blanket of dense mist began to clear on Monday morning, Emily and Lily braved the cold air to feed their pet rabbits in the back garden. As they opened the back door, the fresh weather gave them a cool embrace, waking them up. Archie and Fluffy, their rabbits, lived in a cosy hutch on the patio and were treated like spoilt kings. As Emily placed fresh hay into the hutch, her eyes widened: she saw a mysterious footprint on one of the paving slabs. It was unlike anything she had seen before. She pointed it out to Lily, “Look, Lily. What’s that odd footprint over there?”

Can you find a word in this paragraph meaning the same as thick?

The mist is described as dense.

Dense means thick, telling us there’s a thick layer of mist.

This would make it hard to see.

When you are asked to find and copy a word from the text, make sure you only write one word as your answer.

Look at this line from the story:

As they opened the back door, the fresh weather gave them a cool embrace, waking them up.

Can you think of a word which could replace cool in this sentence, so that it has the same meaning?

There were lots of possible answers here, but you may have come up with chilly, cold, crisp or fresh.

In this activity, you’ll continue to read this story and answer questions about the meaning of words. Use clues in the sentences to help you work out their meanings.