3rd grade vocabulary worksheets

15 vocabulary skills at 3rd grade, one sheet each, free with its answer key: antonyms, compound words, context clues, and more.

Word relationships

Antonyms Antonyms are opposites: hot and cold, up and down, open and closed.
Compound words A compound word is two words joined into one new meaning: sun + flower = sunflower.
Dictionary guide words Guide words are the first and last words on a dictionary page. A word lives on that page only if it fits between them alphabetically.
Homophones Homophones are words that sound exactly alike but are spelled differently and mean different things: sea and see, bear and bare. The sentence tells you which one belongs.
Multiple-meaning words Some words carry more than one meaning: a bat flies at night, and a bat hits a baseball. The rest of the sentence tells you which meaning is on duty.
Shades of meaning Words come in strengths. Glad is a birthday card; thrilled is fireworks. Sorting everyday words from their stronger cousins tunes your word volume knob.
Spatial and time-order words Some words place things in space: beside, beneath, between. Others place events in time: during, until, meanwhile. Writers steer with both.
Synonyms Synonyms are words that mean almost the same thing: happy and glad, big and large.

Prefixes A prefix is glued to the front of a word and changes its meaning: un- flips lock into unlock.
Root words and word building Words are built from parts. The root carries the meaning: play. Prefixes and suffixes snap on: re + play = replay, play + er = player.
Suffixes A suffix is glued to the end of a word and changes its job: care becomes careful, careless, or carefully.

Figurative language, new A simile compares with like or as, a metaphor says one thing is another, personification gives a thing a human action, hyperbole stretches the truth, an idiom is a saying with its own meaning, onomatopoeia is a sound word, and alliteration repeats a first sound.
Idioms An idiom means something different from its exact words. A piece of cake means easy; raining cats and dogs means pouring. The sentence around it tells you which.
Similes and metaphors, new A simile compares with like or as: brave as a lion. A metaphor says one thing IS another: the classroom was a zoo.

Context clues, new The sentence around a hard word usually hides its meaning. Read past the word, find the clue, then decide: The arid desert had not seen rain for months, so arid must mean very dry.

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