Word Jars Books
Cowboy Christmas
Owl moon

Make a jar for "like" or "good" have kids put words like "tremendous" or other synonyms then kids can come pull words from the jar to use in their writing.

As we are reading to students stop and say "look at that word, we can't forget that word" then write it down on the board for use later.

Compare how the author wrote something descriptive to a simple way to write something

Adjectives:
have students write about their moms then take out all the adjectives and say they all look alike. then students can see the power of adjectives. Try reading the Clifford the Big Red Dog without adjectives

Verbs:
Wiggle words. Look at words that move, then send the kids to recess with homework to come back with wiggle words they did at recess. to generate a whole new list of verbs "fought" "threw" "cried"