Expanding Word Choice and Build Vocabulary

When conferencing with my kindergarten and first graders I find it very frustrating when they write words like: fun, cool, great, and best friend.  What do the words really mean?

Last year I spent several mini lessons throughout the year trying to get the children to expand and build upon their word choice.  I love teaching through literature.  So as I read stories during Shared Reading I would always stop and point out big words.  Here are a few of my favorite books that the students really enjoyed and engaged with.....

What I wanted to add to my lessons is some kind of follow up something that the students could easily access and refer to as a reference after the lesson when they were writing.  

So this year I am putting together a binder for the students to use sort of like a dictionary.
I created a cover...

I know how much my first graders and kindergarteners love legos so I am tying this idea in to something they love.  I am going to print a bunch of lego pages to have on hand when a lesson presents itself. My idea is similar to the ideas I have seen on Pinterest.  I am going to write the word we are focusing on for example, fun, on the red block. Then as a class we will brainstorm synonyms, one for each color block left.  

I will keep all our class sheets in a binder in the writing center. There will be a tab for each letter of the alphabet so the students can look up the word we discussed during large group time.